The NotSoSecret Diary of a Companion
by BeautifulLetdown11
Summary: Sequel to The Impossible New Life of Cate Thomas, in the Torchwood section, but this stands on its own. Cate used to think the Whoniverse only existed on TV, until she fell through the Rift. Now she travels with the Doctor. Better description inside.
1. Welcome Aboard

_A/N: Hello, all! Thanks for checking out my story! (And, for those of you who followed this story over from the "Torchwood" section, thanks for coming back! And yes, this is a different title than the one I'd mentioned; I came up with a better one hehe.) Sorry for the somewhat lengthy note that's about to follow, but this story requires a bit of explanation…_

_Like I mentioned in the summary, this is the sequel/continuation of my story from the "Torchwood" section of this site, "The Impossible New Life of Cate Thomas;" but, also like I mentioned, you don't need to have read that story to understand this one (you may miss a reference or two, but nothing essential). All you really need to know is that Cate is a girl from our dimension, who fell through the Rift and wound up at Torchwood Three, which she used to think only existed in a TV show (all necessary details are in this chapter – it's a bit of an introduction/recap). Cate decides to keep track of her adventures in a diary; those diary entries are what you're reading. _

_For the record, Cate starts traveling with the Doctor sometime between "Voyage of the Damned" and "Partners in Crime," as seen from the Doctor's point of view (Cate's knowledge of events ends with "Last of the Time Lords," since she switched dimensions before it aired; she also missed all the Series 4 spoilers). This story will eventually start going along with the events of Series 4._

_I should also mention that there's a very small reference in this chapter to an idea from the "Doctor Who" novel, "Forever Autumn," but it's entirely irrelevant to the novel's plot._

_(And, in case it's unclear, the "being that invaded the timeline" that will be mentioned is the Trickster from the "Sarah Jane Adventures." In my other story, I had the Trickster make good on his promise to take the Doctor out of the timeline.) _

_Finally, I don't own "Doctor Who" or anything affiliated with it. All credit goes to the __brilliant__ people who created all this and keep it going now. (I did come up with Cate, though.)_

_Sorry again for the long note, and thanks again for reading. Enjoy! _

* * *

Entry #1

"So, where do you want to go?"

Those seven, simple words really aren't that interesting on their own; even together, they make a very common question. But, when it's the Doctor, a 904-year-old (approximately), time-and-space-traveling Time Lord, who's asking it, suddenly it's the most exciting question in the world.

In the _universe_, make that. I suppose I should start getting used to thinking… bigger. Because I, Cate Thomas, just so happen to be that lucky human being, being asked that most exciting question in the universe, by the Doctor. And my answer can be just about anywhere, anytime. How great is that!?

But, before I got to give the Doctor my answer – really, before I was even officially asked The Question at all – I had a bit of explaining to do.

"I only got an abridged version of your story back in Cardiff," the Doctor said, after he'd called me out of my room on the TARDIS and into the control room. "Before we pick a place to go, why don't you tell me a bit more about yourself, hm?" He sat down on the nearby bench-couch thing, and patted the space next to him. "You can sit, you know. I have a feeling this may be quite the tale, and you might get tired of standing. Plus, erm, she can get a bit… shaky," he said, referring to the TARDIS. (We were already zipping through the Time Vortex, but at that point we still had no destination set.)

"Oh. Oh, right." I took a seat. (I must say, the couch is more comfortable than it looks.) "So, you wanted to know about me." The Doctor nodded. "Okay. Where to begin…" I thought for a moment, and decided to start with the basics. "Well, as you know, my name is Catherine Thomas, but I prefer 'Cate." I'm 18 – although, technically, by October of 2008, I should be 19, but I skipped all those months, so I'm not quite sure how _that_ works…"

"When's your birthday?" the Doctor asked.

"June 6, 1989."

"Got it. Don't worry, I'll let you know when you're 19," he said with a smile. In response to my confused look, he added, "Time Lord, remember? I'm kind of good with time." Then it was his turn to look confused. "Wait, what do you mean you skipped months?"

"Oh, right, I'll get to that; I figured I'd go through the background stuff first before I explained how I got here," I said, and he nodded his approval of my plan. "So, yeah, I'm 18 and I'm from Stowe, Ver – "

The Doctor interrupted again, but this time with far more energy. "What!?"

I wasn't sure what he was objecting to. "Um… Sorry?"

"Where'd you say you were from?" he asked quickly.

"Stowe?"

"What!?" he repeated, more emphatically this time. He looked at me in sheer disbelief. "_What!?_ But – but – I thought you were supposed to be from Earth!"

I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. "Er, Doctor… I _am_ from Earth."

"But you're from – "

"Stowe," I cut him off. "The town of Stowe, in the state of Vermont, in the country of the United States of America, on the continent of North America, in the northern hemisphere of the planet… _Earth._"

The Doctor blinked. "OH!" he exclaimed suddenly, causing me to jump. "Oh, well, that makes a lot more sense, then!"

"I'm glad, Doctor," I said, although I was still confused. "If you don't mind my asking, though, what's wrong with Stowe?"

The Doctor smiled sadly. "I was on a ship not long ago, and met a woman from a planet called Sto – that's S-T-O, Sto, instead of S-T-O-W-E. Astrid, her name was… nice woman," he said. "She was going to come with me, actually, travel around…" He paused. "Didn't work out. She died saving the world. Yours, in fact; Earth."

I looked at the ground. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah," he answered. "Me too." He sighed, and then suddenly was all smiles again. "But, I believe you were in the middle of an explanation."

I looked back up at him. "Right. Um, I think that's all of the important background info, for now, at least… So, you want to know how I got here. Well, as you know, I'm from a different dimension. Where I'm from, all of this is a TV show – you, your adventures, Torchwood, everything." I paused, realizing something. "Actually, all of this is _three _TV shows. And I happen to be a fan of these TV shows. So, when my parents brought me to the U.K. as a high school graduation gift, I was excited to get the chance to see the place where three of my favorite shows were set – among many other reasons, of course; I'd always wanted to see the U.K. in general, hence why that was my gift.

"When we were in Cardiff, I really wanted to get my picture taken in front of the water tower in the Roald Dahl Plass, seeing as, in the TV show, it was the secret door to the Torchwood Three Hub, and, being the somewhat cheesy person that I am, I thought that would be cool." The Doctor smiled at my comment. "The picture was taken, and then my parents and I headed off to find lunch. I was walking slightly ahead of them, but after a little while, I realized that I couldn't hear them talk anymore. I thought that I'd just gotten really far ahead, but I soon realized that my parents were nowhere to be found.

"It turns out that I'd somehow fallen through the Rift – I figured that out when I went to talk to the police, and they wound up calling in Torchwood. Boy, was I surprised when Jack Harkness and Gwen Cooper showed up at the police station, especially considering that I had just been thinking about Torchwood at the water tower! I was also surprised to find out that, where I'd arrived, it was a year and a couple of weeks after I'd left from, which had been July of 2007 – that's what I meant by 'skipping months,' Doctor." The Doctor gave an, "Ah!" of understanding. "Anyway, long story short, Jack wound up hiring me to work for Torchwood, and Gwen Cooper let me stay with her and her boyfriend, Rhys. And that's how things went, until I met you," I finished.

"You know, I never really got the whole story on that, either," the Doctor said. "I mean, obviously I know what happened after you met me, since I was there, but how precisely _did _that come about?"

"Oh! Well, one day, at Torchwood, I was talking to Jack about the job he had me doing, and – again, long story short – he mentioned that you had died."

"That I had _what!?_" the Doctor exclaimed.

"That was pretty much my reaction, actually," I nodded. "He told me that _I_ had told _him_ that you had died, because you chose to remain John Smith after that affair with the Family of Blood."

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Well that's just ridiculous."

"Again, that was pretty much my reaction. Especially since I _hadn't_ told him anything of the sort. But, with a bit of research, I found that he was right: that _was_ how it had happened. Clearly, though, that was wrong; besides, I knew that just the day before, Jack was under the impression that you were alive and well. So, I decided to take Jack's Vortex Manipulator – which you hadn't gotten the chance to break – and travel back to 1913 to see if I could fix whatever had gone wrong. Which is where you come in," I said, smiling at the Doctor.

"I wound up in 19_16_, instead, and found John Smith happily living his life. But, I managed to get him to tell me about that being that had invaded the timeline and convinced him – er, you – to stay as a human, which successfully removed _you_ from the current timeline. Then you – I mean, _you_, you – showed up, and we convinced Mr. Smith to call back the being who'd made him the offer, and take back his choice. Which he did, and we were all zapped back to our proper places in time and space."

"But then I realized that I was quite impressed with you, and thought you'd make a good travelling companion. So, I came to find you," the Doctor added with a grin.

"You showed up at Torchwood a couple of weeks after I went back in time, and presto! Here we are," I finished.

The Doctor whistled. "Sounds like you've had a fun time in the past couple of months, eh?"

"Yeah," I smiled, "I really have." I shook my head. "Honestly, if someone had told me just three months ago that, in the near future, I would be in – literally, _in_; not 'acting in,' but '_living_ in' – my favorite television shows ever, I probably would have referred them to the nearest psychiatrist. But, look at me! I'm an ID-card-holding employee of Torchwood Three, and now I'm standing in the TARDIS, about to start travelling around with the – " I paused. "Well, with you!" I beamed at the Doctor.

Then the enormity of what I'd just said fully hit me. Not so much the Torchwood part – I'd had that moment already – but the second half of it. My jaw dropped. "Oh, my gosh," I said, more to myself than the Doctor (although he was looking at me with a puzzled expression). I stood up and walked slowly around the console, taking in the room around me. That control room really is large; they aren't kidding when they say, "bigger on the inside." I looked at the Doctor from around the column in the center. "I'm in the TARDIS."

"Yup," the Doctor nodded. "That you are."

"No, but, really. I'm in the TARDIS. You've invited me to travel with you. Through time and space."

"Uh huh."

I couldn't help it. I squeaked a little. At first I was embarrassed, but the Doctor just laughed and sprang off of the couch to come over to me. "Speaking of travelling," he started with a grin, "that sounded to me like it was the end of your explanation."

"I do believe it was, Doctor," I said, smiling back up at him. (Yes, "up." He is _tall_. And I'm average height, too, so really, he is _tall_.)

"Then _I _do believe it's time to pick a destination!" He bounced around the console, hitting various buttons and pulling various levers before coming back to me and saying, "So, where do you want to go?"

There it was! The Question! This was my first chance to answer it, so I knew it had to be good. I thought about it for a couple of seconds. "Well, we did a bit of astronomy in my physics class last year, and my teacher was telling us how, here on Earth – wait, _there_ on Earth – we have no way of knowing what the universe looks like more than 14 billion light years away, because the light from those stars hasn't reached us yet. I mean, we can't see what anything looks like _currently_, because of the time it takes light to travel, but past 14 billion light years, we can't see at all. But travelling with you, I _could_ see it! I could see the stuff that no one on my planet even knows exists yet!" I realized that I was getting quite energetic, so I calmed myself down a bit. "So, do you think we could go to some planet that's more than 14 billion light years from Earth?" I finished.

"Certainly!" the Doctor answered. He squeezed his eyes shut and tapped his head. "Think think think… Aha!" he cried, opening his eyes and turning to me. "There's this nice little planet 14 billion, two million, six-hundred thousand, nine-hundred-and-three light years from Earth, which your people will call Mancaterra when they're eventually able to see it."

"Mancaterra?" I asked. "Hold on, isn't that sort of… Italian?"

"Yeah," he shrugged. "The first human to visit the planet was of Italian descent, and the planet's name in its people's native language was unpronounceable in _any_ human language, so…" He trailed off. "It's not really grammatically correct Italian, mind you, but it's a good attempt."

"Mancaterra, though? Doesn't that essentially mean 'missing land'?"

The Doctor frowned. "Aw, I was hoping that it would be a surprise! You know Italian, apparently?"

"I took it for four years in high school… I'm not fluent, but I can translate relatively well."

"Ah, that would explain it," the Doctor nodded. "Oh well. But yes, there's no land above the oceans on Mancaterra; the only solid ground is the sea floor. The entire civilization survives in huge bubbled-in cities under water!"

"Like Gungans!" I smiled.

"Where do you think George Lucas got the idea from?" asked the Doctor, mischievously.

"He did _not _go to Mancaterra. He didn't." I paused. "Tell me he didn't!"

"Nah, he didn't go," the Doctor laughed. "But sometimes, a person's great idea is actually some piece of psychic energy that drifted through space. Or across dimensions, apparently – remember, I was a TV show where you came from," he winked. "The person who gets this 'message' has no clue what's really going on, so it just gets interpreted as a shining moment of creativity."

"That's totally bizarre," I said matter-of-factly.

"Yeah, but it's brilliant, isn't it?" he asked, smiling. His grin widened when I enthusiastically nodded. "Well," he continued, rubbing his hands together, "good ole Mr. Lucas may not have travelled to Mancaterra, but we, in fact, are doing just that, so, hold on to… well, anything stationary, and, without further ado…" The Doctor hit a couple of buttons and pulled one last lever with a flourish; the TARDIS jerked onto its new course. "Away we go!" He extended his arm, holding out his hand. "Welcome aboard, Miss Thomas."

I shook his hand, beaming. "Believe me, the pleasure's all mine."


	2. Bad Weather Can Ruin a Vacation, pt1

_A/N: If you've decided to continue on to this chapter, thanks! I'm glad you're enjoying it! (Or are at the very least curious; that's good, too!) Hope you like this chapter, too, now that we're getting into actual story lines __._

_And I still don't own "Doctor Who."_

_Enjoy!_

* * *

Entry #2

Within an hour (I think, anyway – apparently my watch doesn't keep time in the Vortex, but based on the fact that I was able to finish that previous diary entry before arriving, I'm guessing about it took about an hour), the TARDIS had landed. It was time for Mancaterra, my very first alien planet.

The Doctor motioned toward the door. "After you," he smiled. "That way, you can experience all the wonder of the new planet, without my big shape in the way," he added with a wink.

I laughed and walked towards the door. I was just touching the handle when the Doctor, who had been following behind me, suddenly exclaimed, "PSYCHIC PAPER!"

I jumped. "Huh?" I said, shaking my head. "What? What about it?"

"It's still in my coat pocket," the Doctor said sadly. "I should go grab that; never know when you might need it." He started walking towards his room, where he'd left his long, brown coat earlier. As he reached the other end of the control room, he turned back to me and said, "Feel free to go on outside without me, if you'd like. Just _don't wan_ – "

"-Der off," I finished as he did. "I know, don't worry."

"Yeah, that's what they all say," the Doctor responded. "And then what do they do? They _wander off_! Then what happens, hm?"

"They wind up hanging from a barrage balloon in the middle of London during the Blitz?" I supplied.

The Doctor blinked. "Well, that was rather more specific than I was going for, but, yes! That too! Point is, _nothing good_ happens. So, no wandering off!"

"Yes, Sir!" I saluted. "I promise."

"Good." And as quick as anything, he was back to his hyper, grinning self. "Won't be a moment!" he said, sprinting down the hall to his room.

I decided I'd wait for him in the TARDIS, anyway, even though he'd told me I could start out without him (as long as I didn't go too far). I thought he should see my reaction. But, I found that I couldn't help but sneak a peek out the door, at least. I opened the TARDIS door just a crack and peered outside. I smiled: it looked _beautiful_. The trees were filled with pink, yellow, and white leaves, and there wasn't a cloud in the sunny blueish-purple sky.

"Wait a minute," I thought to myself. "Sky?" The Doctor had said that Mancaterra was entirely underwater. I took another peek, opening the door a bit wider this time. Yeah, that was definitely sky. And _that _was definitely odd.

I heard the Doctor's footsteps returning from his room. "Doctor?" I called down the hallway, once I figured he was within the range to hear me.

"Yeah?"

"You said Mancaterran cities are entirely underwater, right?"

"Yup, domed in on the sea floor," he answered, emerging from the hallway (with his psychic paper).

"And, these domes, are they clear?"

"One-hundred percent," he smiled. "You can see all the pretty little fishies and other sea creatures floating around outside; it's really quite spectacular."

"But – "

"How can you see the creatures, if the cities are on the sea floor, where light doesn't reach?" the Doctor interjected, assuming he knew what I was going to ask. "Well, they've got billions upon billions of extremely bright, but extremely tiny, lights floating around in the ocean, too. It makes it bright as day inside the cities – when it's supposed to be day, anyway; they turn it off at night."

"That is definitely very cool, but, that's actually not what I was going to ask," I said. "I was going to ask why there's sky outside, if we're underwater."

"If there's what?" the Doctor asked, surprised. "There can't be! Are you sure it was sky?"

"Doctor, this may be my first time on an alien planet, but I'm pretty sure I know the difference between 'water full of fishies' and sky full of birds," I answered. "And this was definitely sky."

The Doctor knitted his eyebrows. "Impossible," he said, heading for the door. "There is definitely no visible sky in the Mancaterran cities." He opened the door and walked out, as I followed behind him.

Once outside, the Doctor looked up – and frowned. "You know, Cate? I think that that is definitely sky."

"I thought so," I said.

He looked around the area we had landed in. "In fact, I think…" He trailed off, gazing around a bit more. "_Yes!_" he suddenly shouted, causing me to jump for the second time in less than five minutes. "But no!" He turned to face the TARDIS. "Oh, come _on_!" He seemed to be talking to the TARDIS at that point. "First trip, first trip ever out of her galaxy – she even knew where she wanted to go! – and we _missed_!? How is that fair?"

I tapped him on the shoulder. "We aren't on Mancaterra, are we?"

"Ah… No. No, we're not. I'm sorry, I really am," the Doctor apologized. "We seem to have missed," he added, shooting a glare at the TARDIS. "We aren't even fourteen-billion light years away from Earth, I'm afraid."

"Oh, well, it's alright, honestly," I said. "It's my first trip, right? So really, this was the best time to miss, because _anything _will be amazing to me! Except, you know, Cardiff in 2008, because I've already been there." I looked around me, noting again the pastel-colored leaves and blue-purple sky. "But I'm definitely thinking that this isn't Cardiff in 2008, so we're good!"

"Nope, not Cardiff at all!" the Doctor replied happily. "In fact, not _Earth_ at all, so at the very least you still get your alien planet. It is still in your solar system, though." He paused, looking puzzled. "We really missed by a lot, didn't we? Strange, usually we don't wind up _this _far off…"

"Where precisely is here, though, Doctor?" I asked.

"Oh of course! Sorry, we're in Capital, the… well, capital city of the planet Minerva, in the year…" He paused to lick his finger, and held in the air for a couple of seconds. "The year 10,000, give or take, by my estimates."

"Ten-thousand…" I repeated, amazed. Then I realized something. "But wait, Minerva? Since when was that a planet in my solar system?"

"I think it was the year 5100, approximately," the Doctor said. "You remember hearing about the hypothetical Planet X, out past Pluto?" I nodded in response. "Well, turns out it wasn't so hypothetical – although it did take them around 3000 years to manage to find it. So, Planet X became Minerva." He grinned at me. "Although, it should be noted that Minerva is not the tenth planet, which would have been more fitting with its old name. It's actually the twelfth."

"Twelfth!?" I asked, surprised. "But, where did the other three – no, other four – come from?"

"Well, first of all, Pluto was reinstated as a planet sometime in the late 48th century, when the definition of 'planet' was changed to, 'Any body that orbits a star or set of stars and can support a population of at least four-billion,' so that's the ninth," the Doctor explained. "Then there's Charon, which is actually a binary-planet system with Pluto, but is still a planet itself, so that's the tenth. Then there's Eris, which used to be just a scattered disk object, but was determined to be the eleventh planet in the 49th century. And lastly, there's Minerva, the twelfth planet."

I took in everything the Doctor said. "Wow," was all I could manage in response.

"Yeah, neat, isn't it?" he smiled. "Just think, next time you're back in 2008, you can laugh at all the people who say that Planet X doesn't exist!"

"And that Facebook group called, 'When I Was Your Age, Pluto Was a Planet,' just got a whole lot funnier," I said, more to myself than the Doctor (though he did chuckle a bit, even if he wasn't quite sure what I meant).

"So, what do you say we start exploring, eh?" the Doctor asked, gesturing down the path in front of us. As we wandered through what appeared to be a residential area, he explained a bit more about Minerva's history. The planet originally hadn't supported any life ("Completely lifeless planets are rare, but not unheard of"), but a scientific team composed of humans, Martians, and Saturnites had terraformed Minerva in the 53rd century to make more room for the ever-expanding populations of the other eleven planets. Although the rest of planets had immigrants from any other planet, Minerva is the only truly mixed-species planet.

The Doctor soon decided that I absolutely had to try this Minervan desert, which was essentially a regular Earth-like sugar cookie frosted with this "unbelievably delicious" Plutonian sweet sauce; so, off we headed to find a bakery. We reached the center of town, only to find it eerily quiet.

"Doctor," I started, "I know you said that there originally weren't any living creatures on this planet, but are you entirely sure that there are now?"

"There are supposed to be," he said, clearly bemused. "This doesn't make any sense."

"Well, maybe everyone's just… inside the buildings," I suggested. "Or maybe they take a siesta in the afternoons!"

The Doctor shook his head. "I've been here a couple of times before, and they never used to take siestas… But even if it's a new trend, now wouldn't be the right time: it's too early in the day," he said, pointing at the Sun in the sky to explain how he knew.

"Is it possible that it's so early that no one's awake yet?" I asked.

He shook his head again. "No, judging by the Sun, I'd say it's about 10am, 11am at the latest. The town center should be bustling at this hour, or at the very least it should be shuffling. Something is very, very wrong."

He scanned the street ahead of us, while I turned around and gazed around the way we'd come. It was then that I noticed something off in the distance that might have been keeping everyone inside. "Um, Doctor, might that 'something wrong' be a gigantic wind storm?"

"It certainly could be, but I find that highly unlikely; terraformed planets have extremely stable weather," the Doctor answered without turning around.

"Well, apparently, Minerva doesn't!" I exclaimed, grabbing him by the arm to turn him around. I pointed at the wall of dust and debris moving quickly from the horizon towards us.

The Doctor's eyes widened. "Oh. Yup, that's a problem." He looked at me, took my hand, and said, "_Run!_"

You know, I always thought it would be difficult, running hand-in-hand like that. You can't swing your arms like you normally would, and if you run more slowly than the one you're with, you're going to get dragged (or wind up dragging them, if you're the faster one). But somehow, with the Doctor, it works. I wasn't really thinking about it as we were running – I was more concerned with not dying – but afterwards I realized that it had been extremely easy. I don't know how to describe it, really… It just felt natural, I guess, even though it isn't. It just _worked_.

Well, the running worked, anyway. The "not dying" part almost didn't. The Doctor and I were running as fast as we could, but the wind storm was obviously faster than we were. It was catching up with us quickly; given just a few more seconds, I have no doubt that it would have swept us up.

But, luckily, just as we were starting to cut our safety buffer really, really close, the door to one of the stores on the street opened. A young woman, who looked like a human about my age but with emerald green skin, stuck her head out of the door. "Hurry up!" she yelled to the Doctor and I. "Get in here, quick!"

She didn't have to tell us twice. The Doctor and I changed course and dashed into the store. The girl just managed to shut the door before the wall of dirt and debris blew past the store.

"That was close," the girl sighed. Then she looked at the Doctor and me with a mixture of awe and fear. "What in the name of all things good or evil were you _thinking_, being outside during the storm!?"

"Well – "

"No, I take that back," the girl interrupted the Doctor, who'd started to answer her, "I don't think you _were_ thinking to begin with! There's no other way to explain why you would be outside at this time of day."

"I'm sorry," I apologized, "but we're… travelers. We aren't from around here. We hadn't caught the latest weather forecast; we'd only just arrived."

"Latest weather forecast?" the girl asked. "What's a weather forecast?"

Before I could answer, the Doctor countered with a question of his own. "You don't need them, do you, weather forecasts? You don't need people to predict the weather, because you always know exactly what it will be."

"If a weather forecast predicts the weather, then yes, you're right," the girl nodded. "Our weather is scheduled, all terraformed planets are like that."

"That's what you meant by 'this time of day,' then," I guessed. "There's always a storm like this at this time of day."

"Exactly," the girl nodded. "Look, I get that you're tourists and everything, but the weather's been on this schedule for thousands of years. You must be from really far away to not know that, at 10:30am every day, there's a huge windstorm."

"Yeah, sorry, but that's exactly it, we're from _really _far away," the Doctor told her. "I'm the Doctor, by the way, and this is my friend Cate. Thanks for saving us."

The girl smiled. "I'm Zara, and I'm glad I was able to help."

"Nice to meet you, Zara," the Doctor replied. "Now, you say there's a storm like this every morning at 10:30?" It sounded like simple small talk – like any tourist trying to get his bearings in a new place – but I recognized the look on the Doctor's face. He had picked up on something strange about this weather schedule, and now he was on a mission to get to the bottom of it.

Zara was none the wiser to the Doctor's intentions, however, and answered the question nonchalantly. "Yeah, every day."

"For how long, exactly?"

"Oh, I don't know exactly how long it's been; the storms started in 6800 or 6900, I think, but don't quote me on that."

"The storms _started?_" the Doctor asked. "Just, poof! Started up one day on their own? Not aided by the scientists in charge of maintaining the weather?"

Zara shook her head. "As far as anyone knows, they just started on their own. The scientists couldn't get them to stop, but the storms were running on a daily schedule, so in the end they just got factored in and we Minervans got really good at wind-proofing things. That's why all the buildings are still standing now."

"Funny, that, because terraformed planets are supposed to have very stable weather," he said, starting to pace. "Perfectly stable, in fact. Sure, you get the occasional necessary rain storm, maybe some snow, even some good old-fashioned thunder storms every now and again, but they're all factored in to your weather patterns by scientists. On terraformed planets, weather doesn't ever just happen. The question is…" He stopped his pacing and looked out of the store window. "The question is, why is Minerva different?"

"Look, honestly, Sir, it's not a big deal," Zara said. She couldn't know that something like this is never "not a big deal" to the Doctor. "Like I said, we've wind-proofed everything, so the damage is minimal if anything. And hardly anybody dies anymore."

Well, _that_ was the last thing the Doctor needed to hear. "Hardly anybody?" he repeated, turning to face Zara. "Hardly anybody is still too many for my liking. No, Zara, this is, in fact, a 'big deal.' Something here is terribly wrong, and I am going to figure out what that is. And then, I'm going to fix it. Cate," he added, turning to me. "I'm feeling like a trip to the library, to do a little research. What do you say?"

"I say that that sounds like a great idea," I smiled. "Count me in."

"Can I come, too?" Zara piped in.

The Doctor raised an eyebrow at her. "Don't you have a store to run? I was assuming this is your shop."

"Oh, well, yeah, but… I can skip a day," she responded, somewhat sheepishly.

"I thought that you said this wasn't a big deal?" the Doctor pointed out smugly.

Zara's cheeks turned slightly blue, which I assumed was her race's (whatever that might be) equivalent of a blush. However, she'd regained her pride in time to answer. "Well, you said that I was wrong. I guess the only way to find out who was right is to go with you."

The Doctor grinned. "That's the investigative spirit! Well, sort of. Close enough." He shrugged. "Anyway, to the library! Allons-y!"

* * *

_To be continued...  
_


	3. Terraforming Troubles, pt2

_A/N: Thanks to everyone who's been reading and reviewing! I hope you're enjoying it so far, and that you enjoy this next chapter, too! (Also, although they're in a library in this chapter, it has nothing to do with Steven Moffat's two recent episodes, so there's no fear of spoilers. It's just coincidental timing hehe.)_

_And, I don't own Doctor Who._

* * *

Entry #2, con't.

Once in the library, the Doctor headed straight for the computers. "Alright," he said, rubbing his hands together, "we need to find out what's causing these wind storms." He looked at Zara and me. "Now, which one of you ladies has a strong science background?"

"Definitely not me," Zara answered quickly. "I've never liked it."

"Well, I wouldn't say I have a 'strong' background, but I did enjoy it in school and took a lot of higher-level classes, if that helps," I supplied.

"Wonderful!" the Doctor grinned. "Alright, then, Zara, do me a favor, would you, and take one of these computers to search through old media reports from around the time the storms first started? Find out what the public was being told about the situation, and if the story's changed over the years."

"Will do," Zara replied, "but I don't know that I'll find much. Scientific issues only get very general coverage in the mass media – dumbed-down and everything," she said, sounding defeated. "And scientific _failures_ are very quickly swept under the rug."

"Oh, ye of little faith," the Doctor shook his head, "I've planned for that, too." He turned to me. "Cate, I'd like you to search through old scientific journals, to see what _they _had to say on the subject."

I nodded. "What about print versions? Do you want me to find those, too?"

The Doctor cocked an eyebrow at me. "No need. Everything's online. Literally, everything."

"Year 10,000, right," I muttered to myself. "Right, then, I'll get to it," I said, sitting down at a computer next to Zara's.

"And what are you going to do, Doctor?" Zara asked suspiciously.

"Again with the lack of faith!" the Doctor said with exasperation. "I, as it happens, am going to be checking for any… _hidden_ publications."

"Hidden?" I asked.

"Yeah, you know, the kind that the powers-that-be don't want anyone to find," he winked. "All the best information is usually there."

"How precisely do you plan to find those?" Zara questioned. She was clearly still a little wary of the Doctor.

"Oh, I know a few special passwords," he answered nonchalantly. "And if all else fails, there's always my sonic screwdriver; it can call stuff up on computers when set to the right frequency."

Zara looked like she had at least a hundred questions for the Doctor, all stemming from his most recent answer, but she just shook her head, choosing not to bother asking anymore. As the discussion then seemed to be settled, we all set about our researching.

Zara, however, apparently wasn't entirely assuaged. After about a minute – and after checking to make sure that the Doctor was a suitable distance away from us – she scooted her chair a little closer to my computer cubicle. Whispering, she asked, "Is he always like this, your friend? Refusing to let some little anomaly go, until he's made sense of it? Rattling on about things that don't make any sense as if you're supposed to understand it anyway?"

"Well, after nearly being killed by it, I'd hardly call that wind storm a 'little' anomaly, but otherwise…" I paused. "Uh, yeah. I haven't actually personally known him for that long, but from what I've seen, he is kind of… always like that. The thing is, he's also nearly always right. If he thinks that this merits fixing, then it merits fixing."

"You really believe that?" she asked.

"Yeah," I replied without hesitation. "I really do."

Zara shrugged. "I hope you're right, because if we cause too much stink over this, we could get into serious trouble. And if _he_ gets caught breaking into classified information, he's got an instant ticket to jail – and he is _not _getting out." With that, she went back to her searching.

I looked over at the Doctor, who was sitting at a cubicle across the room. He looked completely absorbed in whatever it was he was doing at the moment. I sighed. He may be right pretty much every single time, but he wasn't always careful. I hoped that we could solve this mystery without running into too much trouble.

The three of us were silent for the next half-hour or so, gathering whatever information we could. Then, I noticed something about one of the articles I was skimming. "This is strange…" I muttered to myself.

However, the Doctor heard me. "Find something?" he asked.

I turned in my chair to face him, across the room. "I'm not sure yet, really, it could just be a coincidence…"

He got up from his computer and walked over to me. Leaning on the back of my chair, he said, "Okay, let's take a look. What have you got?"

"Well, for starters, a lot of different scientific journals were covering the storms when they first started in 6884," I said. "But, this journal here, '_Science Tracker_,' seems to have the most in-depth coverage going on. Each issue, beginning with the month after the first storm, has an article about the progress being made on the storm research; all the articles are written by the same man, Dr. Fredrick Pah… pah-ber… pah…"

"It's a Venutian surname," the Doctor explained, noting the trouble I was having pronouncing it. "Just say 'Smith' or 'Jones' or something."

"Thanks," I sighed, happy for the simpler option. "Dr. Fredrick Smith, then, wrote all of the articles for this journal. He wasn't a member of the team doing the experiments, but he was in charge of reporting the team's theories and results. They had a pattern going: the first month's article explained the storm problem, then explained the team's current theory and the experiment they'd be carrying out to test it. The next month, Dr. Smith recapped the theory and the experiment, then detailed the results. He did the same thing for the next four months with two new experiments. All three experiments failed to explain the cause of the storms, or do anything to stop them.

"The next month's article, as expected, covered the team's latest theory: they wondered if some kind of alien life-form may have been causing the storms. Up until then, they'd always been testing chemical causes, all to no avail; so; they decided to investigate the possibility of a living cause. In the next issue, it's reported that even _that _experiment was a failure, and that after eight months of unsuccessful attempts to stop the storms, the government was cutting the funding and the storms would simply be factored in to the daily weather patterns."

I looked over my shoulder at the Doctor. "But, here's the thing. Like I said, all of the articles are written by this Dr. Fredrick… Smith. Except that, I don't think that this last one really was."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow, and even Zara (who had previously been listening to me with mild interest) looked perplexed. "Really?" the Doctor asked, pulling a nearby chair next to mine so he could see the computer screen more closely. "What makes you say that?"

"My senior-year English teacher was a stickler for writing style," I explained. "He only just stopped short of physically shoving style lessons down our throats last year." I couldn't help but smile at the memory of my often over-enthusiastic English teacher. He would be so excited to see how I was using his lessons now! "Needless to say, I got good at recognizing even the smallest differences in tone, syntax, diction, structure… Not to toot my own horn, but, you name it, I can spot it."

"And that's what you did here," the Doctor nodded. "You spotted it."

"The differences in style, yes, but I don't know if that necessarily proves anything," I said, sheepish. "I'm not 100-percent certain that it's a different _writer_, just a different style; I mean, Dr. Smith may well have written this article with a different style because he was upset that the funding had been cut after another failure. But there is definitely a difference in style. All of the others had very… 'flow-y' sentences, and long, descriptive paragraphs. This last one is much choppier, and the paragraphs are shorter. The last article also makes very little attempt to vary word-choice, whereas the first ones definitely did."

"Sounds to me like the first ones were written by a writer who understands science, while the last one was written by a scientist who can write reasonably well," the Doctor mused.

"So?" Zara asked, sounding frustrated. "I don't doubt that you've discovered plagiarism, but I don't see what that has to do with anything."

"Did you come along to help or just to complain?" the Doctor snapped.

"I came along just in case you were right, and this turned out to be a 'big deal,' like you said," Zara responded, without missing a beat. If nothing else, the girl was fiery. "I would be happy to help if that would was the case. But all the research we've done seems to me to just be supporting what I'd said all along: what does it matter? The storms started and can't be stopped, so we've learned to live with them. The end."

"Clearly, the start of the storms was hardly 'the end,' as they're still causing trouble now," the Doctor responded forcefully. "The fact that they started at all was strange enough, but what Cate just discovered adds to mystery…" He ruffled his hair, staring at the computer screen. "_Why?_" The question seemed to be aimed at no one in particular. "Why would a self-respecting journalist allow someone else – especially someone who wasn't as talented a writer as they are – to use their name? Or, why would a self-respecting journalist agree to write under someone else's name, thus giving up any chance of recognition? Or, if it was a scientist who wrote that last article, why wouldn't _they_ take any recognition for their hard work? Even if they were embarrassed that the experiments failed, they're supposed to be so insistent upon facts, that I'd think that might deter them from lying!"

"Maybe they weren't actually self-respecting; that might lead them to that sort of behavior," Zara muttered quietly. The Doctor either didn't hear her or chose to ignore the comment – although, I had to admit she did have a good point.

The Doctor sighed. "Cate, can you pull up the previous month's article? I want to see what it said about the experiments."

I clicked the link provided in the last article, connecting to the previous one. The Doctor studied it for a couple of minutes, then asked if I could switch back to the final article. I clicked the link at the bottom of the page leading to the requested article.

"What's that?" the Doctor asked, leaning forward in his chair and pointing at the message on the screen.

"That? That was the first time I clicked the link, too. It's just a, 'This page has been moved,' message," I shrugged. "There must have been something wrong with the… original… link…" I trailed off, then turned to face the Doctor. "But, that's weird, isn't it? We find an article that doesn't seem to follow all the others in the series, and it turns out that it's actually been reposted…"

"Correctamundo!" The Doctor's smile turned to into a grimace. "Yeah, really shouldn't ever say that again, definitely." He shook his head. "Anyway! Now we're getting somewhere!" He was grinning like a kid in a candy store again. He pulled out his sonic screwdriver and turned the computer around so that the back was facing us. "Now, let's see if with a bit of jiggery-pokery," (I couldn't help but smile at the term), "I can uncover the original article."

As the sonic screwdriver made its familiar whirring noise in the computer's general direction, Zara's jaw dropped. "Okay, what is that, what is it doing, and how is it going to call up a web page?"

"This," the Doctor explained with patience, though without looking away from the computer, "is my aforementioned sonic screwdriver! Handy little device. What it's doing is using sonic waves to…" He paused. "You know, we really don't have time to get into a discussion of how, precisely, my sonic screwdriver works. It's highly complicated and extremely advanced, even for this time, so, unfortunately for you, Zara, this is just another one of those things about me that you'll have to take on faith." Zara just nodded, still looking amazed.

"Aha!" the Doctor suddenly exclaimed. "I think I might have…" He leaned over the computer so that he could see the screen. "I did!" he said excitedly. "And the jiggery-pokery succeeds yet again!" He turned the computer back around to face us. "You might notice, Cate, that this article is rather different from the one you read." (Reading the first few lines of the newly discovered article, I found that he was right.) "Now," the Doctor continued with a broad grin, "we find out what _really _happened with these storms."

His grin gradually faded, though, as he read the article. He read so quickly that Zara and I gave up on following along, and merely exchanged somewhat worried glances over the Doctor's darkening expression. By the time he had finished the piece, he looked downright infuriated.

"I don't believe this!" he exclaimed angrily. "Actually, no, I do believe this. You people – _all_ of you from this galaxy, every single species has this terrible habit – you _never _learn! You always think that life can only exist as you know it! You go and terraform a planet, _claiming _that you've checked for native life, but never bother to test for life-forms that you haven't encountered!"

Not wanting to incur the wrath of the Doctor, but feeling like I needed to stick up for my people, I gently said, "But, Doctor, how can we check for life if we don't know what it is? I mean, if we don't know it exists, how would we know to look for it?"

The Doctor shook his head. "By the 51st century, scanners have been developed that check for life based on any chemical – not just carbon-based life-forms," he explained. "You may never have encountered, say, a helium-based being, but these scanners can detect them all the same. But," he continued angrily, "you never set the scanners to check for anything but carbon- or silicon-based life-forms! Those are the only kind you've encountered, so _clearly_ they're the only ones that exist," he said sarcastically. "It takes too much effort to switch the scanner, you say, so why bother looking for something that 'doesn't exist?' But then something like this goes and happens!" He pointed fiercely at the screen.

Zara and I skimmed through the article with increasing shock. "Let me get this straight," Zara said, once we'd finished. "The last experiment wasn't a failure after all, but a success. They found that these wind storms weren't storms at all, but sand-grain-sized, oxygen-based life-forms, rushing over Minerva in retaliation for polluting the air?" she asked in disbelief.

"That's about it," the Doctor said, nodding solemnly. "Though I'd bet it wasn't really 'retaliation.' More like, 'This is the only way we're ever going to get your attention, so we have to attack.'" He sighed. "The only good news is that there should be an easy fix. Just acknowledge the presence of these native Minervans, and cut down on pollution."

Zara scoffed. "Good luck getting the government to admit to a mistake this big. I admit, you were right, this is a big deal – "

"Thank you," the Doctor interrupted smugly.

" – but we're going to have one heck of a time convincing everyone else that we're anything more than trouble-mongers," she finished.

Even I had my doubts. "Plus, this all happened so long ago; all the people directly involved are long dead," I pointed out. "Even if we _could _have convinced them to fix their mistakes, we certainly can't do that now."

"Oh, come on, Cate, I expected a bit more from you, at least," the Doctor said, making me unable to catch his eye. "You know me better than that, don't you?"

"If there's anyone that I'd trust to do the impossible, it'd be you," I answered truthfully. "But I just don't see how…"

I was cut off by a very loud alarm. The Doctor and I looked at each other in confusion. We turned to Zara, who looked very worried.

"I've heard that alarm before," she said. "That's the alarm they sound when everyone's supposed to stay _in_ the library, instead of getting out. It's only used when there's going to be a police investigation, and everyone needs to stay in case they need to be questioned."

"Any chance that someone coincidentally tried to steal a book at the same time we were hacking into secret government websites, and this actually has nothing to do with us?" I asked hopefully.

"I doubt it," the Doctor answered.

"Yeah, I figured we wouldn't be that lucky," I sighed.

"There must be some sort of software that alerts the powers-that-be that someone's accessed their classified files from an unauthorized computer," the Doctor groaned. "That's not good."

"Doctor, do you have a plan to make people listen to you about these storms?" Zara asked.

"Yes."

"Good. Then you and Cate should get on that. If you go down to the basement, there's an old passage that connects to the school down the road; you can get out through there. The passage has been closed down for years because the stairs are really rickety, but that means the police probably won't be in any rush to check for the perpetrators there," Zara explained. "I'll try to buy you some time; see if I can misdirect the police or something." She smiled at the Doctor. "Like I said, you were right. This is a big deal. So, I'm helping. Now, go!" She made a "shooing" motion towards the windows.

"Thanks, Zara," the Doctor smiled. "I promise, if you get in trouble, we'll bail you out!" With that, the Doctor and I rushed to find the nearest set of stairs to the basement.


	4. The Ministry, pt3

_A/N: I think my chapters are too long. Sorry about that, if they are… I'll try to fix that in the upcoming chapters. Also, just for clarification, there is a tiny "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead" mention in here - well, sort of, the Doctor never finishes his sentence. However, the Doctor hasn't experienced that story line yet; but, in the episode, it was clear that he already knew about the Vashta Nerada from sometime before. So, he knows about them now, in this chapter of my story, and can mention them to Cate. (Thank you to QueenieMeanie for reminding me, in a review, that I wanted to mention that in my author's note!)  
_

_Anyway, thanks for reading and reviewing; I hope you're enjoying it so far! _

_And, as always, I don't own anything "Doctor Who" or anything related to it._

* * *

Entry #2, con't (again)

After reaching the basement and wandering for a bit, we finally found the door to the passage Zara had mentioned. The door led to yet another flight of stairs – and we immediately saw what Zara had meant by "really rickety." It looked as if the stairs were made of more rotted wood than solid wood, at this point.

The Doctor headed down the stairs first, so he could help me down if they broke. He stepped gingerly on each step, and managed to reach the bottom without falling through (although they did creak very ominously). "That's not so bad!" he called up encouragingly. "Come on down!"

I took a deep breath and stepped softly on the first stair, closing the door behind me. Holding very tightly on to the railing, I carefully scurried down the rest of the flight. Thankfully, the stairs didn't collapse on me, either.

"Okay, tunnel time," I said, once safely on the ground. I looked down the passage ahead. There was just enough light coming from dusty overhead lamps (those whose lights hadn't burned out, anyway) to see where you were going, but no more. I amended my previous statement. "Dark, creepy tunnel time. Not that I'm afraid of the dark, or anything," I added quickly. "Don't want you thinking I'm a chicken, it's just… eerie-looking."

The Doctor smiled sympathetically. "There's nothing wrong with a fear of the dark. In fact, it's quite intelligent to be afraid of the dark; just occasionally, there actually are things – "

"How about you tell me this _after_ we're done with the creepy tunnel, yeah?" I asked, cutting him off.

"Good point," he chuckled. (I'm glad _someone _was amused.) "Come on, then, let's get this done."

We walked in silence for a couple of minutes, until I heard something coming from behind us, overhead. I grabbed the Doctor's arm. "What was that?" I hissed.

"Sounded like footsteps," he replied, listening closely. "Probably the police searching the basement now."

"Right," I laughed nervously. "Of course." I looked up at the ceiling, then back at the Doctor. "Maybe we should hurry up, then, just to be safe."

We'd only taken a couple more steps when we heard the crash.

"Doctor, did that sound like the stairs breaking to you?" I asked, feigning calm.

"Yeah, yeah it did," he answered with a similar tone of voice.

"Terrific." I sighed. "Running time again?"

"Oh yes," he said, taking my hand as we sprinted down the hall.

As we ran, I could hear footsteps behind us. "Doctor," I panted, "do you think the library had security cameras?"

"Probably."

"So, uh, the police know what we look like, then, don't they?"

"Quite likely."

"So that's sort of bad, isn't it?"

"Definitely has potential to be bad, yes."

If there hadn't been the constant threat of the police catching up with us, I would have stopped running to gape at him. "You're awfully calm about all this!" I said, exasperated and still out of breath.

The Doctor flashed me his million-watt grin. "Course I am! I plan on us getting to the right people before it matters whether or not the police know what we look like!"

"Oh. Okay," I said simply, unsure of how to respond to his unabashed confidence. Besides, I trusted him. (At that moment, I admittedly was questioning the intelligence of trusting him – what with the police chasing us down the hall – but I did all the same.)

I did have one last question, though, as the door to what I could only hope was the school Zara had mentioned came into view. "Doctor, who exactly are the 'right people' to tell?"

"The heads of the Minervan Ministry of Meteorology," the Doctor answered matter-of-factly. "We're in the capitol city, remember; they're based here."

"And, just to make sure I've got this right, we're simply going to waltz in and tell them that they were wrong all those years ago?"

"Yup. Good old psychic paper gets us smoothly in, my good old gob gets us smoothly out," he winked.

As we reached the second set of rickety stairs, I actually did stop running to stare at him; partially in disbelief, but mostly in awe. "You really are some cross between impossible and amazing, you know that, right?" All I got as an answer was a smile.

He sent me up the stairs first this time, again so that he could catch me if the stairs gave way. The stairs stayed solid for me, but the second-to-last step from the top split just as the Doctor was leaving it. Luckily, he was alright and didn't fall through; we didn't even lose much time.

Then it was back to running again. Looking around as we charged through the basement we'd found ourselves in, I could tell that it was definitely a school: there were disused textbooks and broken desks everywhere we turned. We ran to the nearest staircase and bounded up it; but, once at the top, I grabbed the Doctor's arm to slow him down.

"What's this?" he asked, looking genuinely puzzled. "Weren't you the one so eager to get as far away from the police as possible a moment ago?"

"Yes," I nodded, "but this is a school. Two people, dashing top-speed down the hallway? That will attract a whole bunch of attention; we'll be stopped and questioned and have to show visitors' passes…"

"Point taken," the Doctor agreed. "Quick walking, then."

We got through the school without trouble, and paused once we were safely off the campus. The Doctor looked around. "I think we want to go this way," he said, nodding to his left.

After a bit more running (which was safe to do, now that we were outside of the school), the Doctor abruptly stopped in front of a white marble building. "Here it is!" he grinned. "The Ministry of Meteorology." I followed him as he walked through the door and headed straight to the reception desk.

"Hello," he smiled sweetly at the receptionist, "I'm Dr. John Smith, and this is my assistant, Cate Thomas. We need to speak to the Minister of Meteorology, please."

The woman looked slightly puzzled, but went dutifully about her job. "May I see your I.D.?"

"Oh, yes, of course!" The Doctor dug into one of his pockets and pulled out the psychic paper. "Here we are," he said, handing his "I.D." over to the receptionist.

She studied it for a moment, then handed it back to the Doctor. "Right, Dr. Smith. Do you have an appointment?"

"Well, not really, no," the Doctor replied, "but it's urgent. Really urgent. I had no time to call and make an appointment; what I'm here to talk about needs to be discussed immediately, if not sooner!"

"I'm sorry, but you can't see the Minister without an appointment," the receptionist said. "I can make one for you at the earliest available date, however, if this matter is so important."

"It _is_ that important, and believe me, it really needs to be _now_!" The Doctor sounded frustrated, and glanced around the lobby in an annoyed huff.

The receptionist sighed. "Alright, Dr. Smith, why don't you and Miss Thomas have a seat over there?" She motioned to a row of chairs along the wall to our left. "I'll see if the Minister has any spare time today to see you, but I make no guarantees."

"Thank you, that will be lovely." The Doctor smiled at the receptionist, and as we turned our backs to her, he gave me a small wink.

Once settled in our seats by the wall, I leaned closer to the Doctor and whispered, "What's going on? What was the wink for?"

"This," he answered conspiratorially, pulling his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket.

I raised an eyebrow at him. "What are you going to do with that?"

"You'll see," he replied, winking again. He turned the screwdriver on; he hid it in his jacket, but I could tell that it was pointed towards the receptionist's desk. A few seconds later, the desk collapsed; papers and writing utensils scattered everywhere. The very confused receptionist stood up to reorganize the chaos that had sprung up around her, and suddenly, the chair she'd been sitting on fell apart, too. The poor woman looked as if nothing stranger had ever happened to her in her entire life.

As the receptionist was hunched over the mess, the Doctor shifted in his seat. "And now," he said, grabbing my hand and giving me a slight tug, "we sneak away."

We slipped unnoticed through a nearby door, which led to a corridor heading farther into the building. Once we were definitely out of the receptionist's earshot, I said to the Doctor, "You broke. Her desk."

"And her chair," he answered somewhat distractedly; he appeared to be studying the walls of the hallway we were walking through, looking for something. "Well, not really 'broke' them, more just took out all the screws… _Aha_!" He stopped suddenly in front of a sign on the wall to our right, causing me to jog right into him. (He didn't seem to notice.) A couple of seconds later, he turned to me and said, "Right, Minister's office, top floor, room 622." He took me by the shoulders and turned me around to go back the way we'd come from. "And the lift is this way," he explained, seeing me open my mouth to ask why we were doubling back.

We got to the elevator and waited for about a minute before we heard the _ding _signifying the car's arrival. The elevator doors opened, and the Doctor and I rushed in. He pressed the "6" button and the doors shut; we were on our way.

The doors hadn't even completely opened onto the sixth floor when the Doctor squeezed out between them, with me following close behind. We made a mad dash to room 622 and the Doctor knocked on the door, taking maybe half a second at the most to compose himself before talking to the Minervan Minister of Meteorology.

"Come in," a male voice answered.

The Doctor smiled at me. "Huh, not so busy after all!" He opened the door…

… And his smile (as well as mine) quickly faded. "Oh," he said, deflated. "Now, that's just cheating."

There was a well-dressed humanoid man (quite like Zara, though this man's skin was purple) sitting behind a desk, who I assumed to be the Minister; he looked almost, but not completely, apologetic. Surrounding him were six entirely leather-clad guards, all with huge guns pointed directly at the Doctor and me. They, too, had a general humanoid shape (though far larger than most humans I'd been accustomed to), but not an inch of skin was visible through their uniforms, so I had no idea what race they really were. In fact, based on their outfits and stony silence, I had a sneaking suspicion that they were actually Slabs, like when Martha first met the Doctor.

"Right, okay, intuition tells me that we are probably very high up on your list of people to get rid of," the Doctor said calmly, "but, please, I promise you that we mean no harm. I don't like fighting and I really hate killing, so you have nothing to fear from me. Or her, she's with me," he added, indicating me. "Please. We're here to help. If you'd just be so kind as to lower your weapons, we think we can tell you how to get rid of those annoying wind storms that rip through your planet every day."

The guards, however, did not lower their weapons, but _raised _them, as soon as the Doctor said the word "storms." The Doctor stepped protectively in front of me. "Alright, alright, let's not do anything hasty!" He looked at the Minister imploringly. "Please, Minister, give us a chance."

The Minister looked from the Doctor, to me, to his guards. "Lower your weapons," he said finally, with a sigh.

"Right. Good. Thanks," the Doctor said. "Now, about those storms…" he continued, and launched into one of his trademark whirlwind explanations. "I don't know how much you know about the old experiments, Minister, but all you really need to know right now is that the storms aren't just natural occurrences; actually, the storms are caused by – "

"The native Minervans," the Minister interrupted. "We know."

That was a bad thing to say. The Doctor looked livid – that scary livid that he'd perfected, where you know he's holding it all in but he may just explode at any moment. "How do you mean, 'you know?'" he asked softly.

"We know," the Minister repeated. "Since the cause of the storms was discovered, every Minister of Meteorology has been briefed on the case. There's a reason that we tend to stay in office for so long," he added with an almost sad smile. "Someone with that big of a secret is not… _kindly_ let back into the general populace." He sighed. "But that isn't the point. The point is, I know the cause of the storms."

"And you do _nothing_!?" There it was; the explosion. "You could stop these storms! It's so simple! Just cut down on pollution; make some sort of deal with the native Minervans! Then you're no longer poisoning the natives, and the lives of the residents of Minerva are no longer threatened by the storms!"

"It is not quite that simple, Doctor," the Minister said, shaking his head. "For starters, how are we supposed to communicate with the native Minervans? They are beings the size of dust grains; we can hardly just go into a meeting with their leader. For another, cutting pollution costs money."

"Meanwhile, your pollution and the storms are costing _lives_!" the Doctor pointed out angrily. "I dare say that saving lives is worth that extra bit of spending!"

The Minister shook his head again. "The people wouldn't see it that way. They would see it as unnecessary money spent to solve a problem that's being dealt with just fine already. They don't know about the native Minervans, so all the people would see is the government spending their tax money on reducing pollution, when the money could be going to improving education or medical care."

"Well, here's a novel idea, then," the Doctor said scathingly. "Why don't you just _tell_ the people about the native Minervans? You know, tell them the truth?"

"Then they would lose all faith in their government," the Minister answered. "There would be riots in the streets."

"Technically, Sir," I spoke up tentatively, "there already are, aren't there?" The Minister gave me a puzzled look. "The storms," I clarified for the Minister's sake. "Aren't they kind of like the native Minervans rioting?"

"I… Well… We have those under control," the Minister answered.

"No, you don't," I replied, getting braver. "If you did, they wouldn't be happening. That's what it means to have a riot situation under control – you're _ending _it. But you're not ending this problem, you've just learned how to ignore it with minimal damage."

"But minimal is not none," the Doctor added. "One day, the people will get tired of the storms. New technology will come along, and people will use these new methods to try to stop the storms again. The truth will come out, one day. It always does." He looked straight into the Minister's eyes. "Believe you me, it _always_ does."

"Then let it happen 'one day,' in the future," the Minister said, waving his hand. "It will have nothing to do with me."

The Doctor looked ready to explode again, but I had something to try, first. "That's an understandable point, Minister," I said kindly. "In your shoes, I'd probably feel the same way; I wouldn't want to be responsible for the possible repercussions of releasing this information to the public.

"But," I continued, before the Minister – or the Doctor – had the chance to say anything, "from the point of view of a citizen – not of Minerva, but a citizen in general," I clarified, "I don't know that everyone _would_ lose faith in the government. Oh, I'm sure that some will, and maybe even a lot will, especially at first. But intelligent people should realize something different: that _you_, Sir, were the one to finally let the people know the truth." Yes, I was playing on his ego. "_You_ were the one to finally do something about this problem; to stop the storms. There may be unrest and doubt for a while at first, but people will come around once they realize that you were the first to be _honest_. You'll go down in history."

"How do you want to remembered, Minister?" the Doctor asked him, following along with my idea. "Just another Minister of Meteorology who did nothing to help the planet, or the first to step up to the plate?"

The Minister looked thoroughly conflicted. He glanced back and forth between the Doctor and me. "I'll really go down in history?"

"Oh yes," the Doctor said. "Without a doubt."

After a nudge from the Doctor, I added, "Definitely! Heralded for centuries!"

The Minister thought for a moment, then sighed. "Fine," he said finally. "But I assure you, if my government collapses for any reason, any reason at all, I will blame _you_, Doctor!"

"Well, then, we'll be sure…" The Doctor paused. "Hang on, how do you know who I am? We never introduced ourselves; not to you…"

The Minister smiled, but cruelly. "Doctor, really. You hacked into our classified files from a _public_ library. We had your image on the security cameras." (I _knew_ that that would be a problem!) "A quick background check was all it took to learn your identity – you're rather famous in the universe, you know. Or rather _in_famous," he smirked. "We couldn't find anything on your friend, but we know how you operate, Doctor. She's a temporary companion; it doesn't matter who she is." He looked at me. "No offense, of course." Not quite sure how to respond to that, I just nodded.

"Ah. Well." The Doctor tugged at his ear. "That's… Huh." He cleared his throat. "Anyway, now that this is all taken care of, we should be going. Thanks for all your help, Minister. Come on, then, Cate…"

"Not so fast, you two," a muffled voice called as we turned to leave. The Minister's guards had raised their guns again. One of them stepped forward. "There is still the matter of you two hacking into classified government files," he said. (Okay, not Slabs, then.)

"Oh, come on, we can look over that, can't we? Just this once?" the Doctor asked sweetly. "We were only trying to help."

The Minister shook his head. "If I let you go, word might get out that it was _you_ who discovered the solution to the storm problem," he explained calmly. "Then it would be the two of you who went down in history, instead of just me. And we can't have that, now can we?"

The Doctor took my hand and ever-so-slowly – almost imperceptibly – started backing towards the door. "I suppose that our leaving and promising never to come back wouldn't be an acceptable alternative to spending the rest of our lives in prison?" he asked.

"I'd prefer to keep an eye on you," the Minister answered.

"Yeah, figured that," the Doctor shrugged, "but, I tried." He looked at me and said, "It's that time again!" Half a second later we were running for dear life – literally – out the office door.

We didn't bother waiting for the elevator this time around – we ran down the six flights of stairs to the ground level. As we bounded through the door leading from the hallway to the lobby, the receptionist (still the same poor lady whose desk and chair the Doctor had disassembled) called, "Hey, you two! How did you get – "

But the Doctor cut her off as we whizzed past her. "Sorry, but you'll thank us later!" And we were out the door.

We ran through the Minervan streets as fast as we could, heading back to the TARDIS. We didn't take the shortcut through the school and the library this time, afraid the police might still be looking for us there; unfortunately, they were looking for us all throughout the city, so it didn't wind up making a huge difference. We turned down one street and saw a group of police officers at the other end, resulting in a very quick turn-around for the Doctor and me, and some even faster running when the police realized who those two figures actually were that had been at the end of the road.

Somehow, we made it to the TARDIS in one piece, and managed to shut the door just as the police were rounding the corner. I collapsed against one of those coral-branch-things, while the Doctor jumped around the console, preparing for take-off. A few seconds later, the column in the center started moving – we were off.

I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding (probably a bad idea, too, holding my breath after all that running). "We did it?"

The Doctor smiled. "Safe and sound. Well, you know, for now."

I chuckled. "I just wish we could find out if the Minister will actually do anything about the storms."

"Already taken care of," the Doctor said.

I looked up at him. "What?"

"Already taken care of," he repeated, his smile widening (you know, that "I just did something really clever" smile). "I've set the course for Minerva, twenty years in the future. If the Minister has really done something about the storms, in twenty years' time, they'll be nonexistent. And, added bonus, the police will have stopped looking for us around every corner by then." The TARDIS gave a sudden jolt. "And, I believe we're back!"

We poked our heads out of the TARDIS door before exiting, just to make sure it was safe. The coast was clear, so we left the TARDIS and headed down the road. The street looked familiar to me; at first, I figured it must have been one of the ones that we'd run down, trying to escape the police a few minutes (… or twenty years) ago. But then I realized.

"Doctor! This is the road where Zara's shop is!"

"Indeed it is!" he replied cheerfully. "Who better to ask about the status of the storms than someone who helped us stop them? I just hope her store's still open, and hasn't moved…"

We entered the storefront that we knew to be Zara's family's, and happily found that it was still the same. There was only one other customer in the store, and he was checking out; we waited until he was done and walked over to the counter.

The Doctor greeted the girl behind the counter with a friendly smile. "Hello; we were wondering if Zara was in today?"

"Yeah, she's here," the girl answered. "She's in the back; I'll go get her."

The girl disappeared into the back room; shortly thereafter, she reappeared, with Zara following behind. Zara's mouth dropped open when she saw us. "Oh, my…" She laughed. "Doctor! Cate!" She ran out from behind the counter and gave us both a hug. "It's been twenty years! Do you realize it's been _twenty_… And look at the two of you! You haven't changed a bit! How… Cate, you were around my age when we met, how come…"

The Doctor and I both laughed. "Let's just say, we're lucky like that," the Doctor answered her.

"Just as mysterious as ever, you two," Zara shook her head.

The Doctor and I gave each other a quick smile before he asked Zara, "By the way, whatever happened when we left you at the library?"

It was Zara's turn to grin. "Just what I said I'd do. I misguided the police. _I_ knew which way you went, but they hadn't seen you. I sent them round the wrong side of the library." She looked quite proud of herself at first, but then her face fell a bit. "Unfortunately, the police wound up thinking to check the basement, anyway, after they didn't find you where I sent them… But at least, I hope, I bought you some time."

Then she seemed to remember something. "But what are you doing here? If the police find you, you'll be thrown in jail for life! I told you, all those years ago, if they catch you breaking in to classified information…"

"We know, and that's why we really can't stay long," the Doctor responded.

"We wanted to know, though, about the storms," I said. "Did the Minister ever actually do anything about them?"

Zara grinned. "They've stopped," she said happily. "Completely stopped. The Minister explained everything – well, everything except our part in it, of course; he took all the glory for himself – but everything else was all true. Agreements were reached and pollution was reduced… I wish I could explain it better, but I told you back then, science has never been my strong suit. The point is, it worked, and now we can all live together peacefully." Zara scrunched up her face. "It is a bit hard as the native Minervans are so tiny, but, you know, we try…"

"That's wonderful!" I exclaimed. I turned to the Doctor. "We actually did it!"

The Doctor simultaneously gave Zara and me a hug. "That we did!"

When we let go, the Doctor sighed. "Well, it's time for Cate and me to head on out… I would really like to avoid prison."

"We _both _would really like to avoid prison," I corrected. Turning to Zara, I added, "But thank you so much for the help – then and now."

"Yes, thank you, Zara," the Doctor agreed. He beamed at her. "You helped save the world!"

Zara shrugged, sheepish. "I didn't do all that much…"

"Ah, but Zara, that's just the thing!" the Doctor said, shaking his head. "It doesn't always take much to save the world."

We said our goodbyes, and the Doctor and I headed back to the TARDIS once again. We went inside and the Doctor set about getting us back into the Vortex. Once that was all settled, he turned to me. "So," he said, grinning, "how did you like your first-ever trip to a different planet?"

I beamed back at him from my seat on the couch. "It was awesome!" I paused. "Well, you know, not the almost getting arrested part, but the rest of it was great!"

The Doctor laughed. "Molto bene! Glad you enjoyed yourself. And the good news is, there's plenty more where that came from! Not the getting arrested part, I mean – well, alright, that too, sometimes – but, you know, everything else."

"Where to next?" I asked, curious.

"I actually thought we should just float around for a bit," he answered. "You could probably use some sleep, I'd imagine."

Until he mentioned it, I hadn't realized just how tired I was. The last time I'd slept was… Was it the night before the Doctor came to find me at Torchwood? I think so. I must have been awake for more than 24 hours by now, and lots of that was spent running around an alien planet…

As if on cue, I yawned. "I think you're right," I said. I stretched and got up from the couch, heading towards my room. "Goodnight, Doctor. Er, sort of. It's not really… night…"

He smiled at me. "I understand all the same. And goodnight to you, too."

I smiled back and retired to my room. Of course, before I could actually sleep, I had to write all of this down (though I think I've fallen asleep a couple of times while writing). I still can't believe that I was really on an alien planet, in the future… But I suppose I should get used to this kind of thing, traveling with the Doctor. Then again, getting used to it doesn't necessarily make it less amazing.

Yup. This is going to be fun.


	5. Laundry Fiascos

_A/N: As always, thanks to everyone who's been reading, and an extra thanks to everyone who's reviewed! This chapter takes a break from the adventure, and shows a little bit of everyday-life on the TARDIS… I'm amused by it, so hopefully you'll enjoy it, too! (I'm a little worried that the end bit might be a little too… strange? But the idea came into my head one day and wouldn't leave me alone, so I had to write it. This should be the only time the correlations between the two universes are this explicitly stated.)_

_I should mention, too, that yes, this is correctly labeled "Entry #6." If you've ever kept a diary, you know that not every entry is all that exciting. Since those not-exciting entries would make boring fan fiction, I'm "skipping" entry numbers every so often._

_Lastly, "Doctor Who" and all related stuff aren't mine. I happily give all credit to those who do own it._

* * *

Entry #6

Lesson number one, of The Things the Doctor Won't Warn You About When You Come Aboard: Laundry on the TARDIS is dangerous. Entertaining, I suppose, but dangerous. Well, ok, the ironing thing was _my_ fault… But still, I've never had more trouble just trying to do my laundry!

It all started this afternoon (by which I mean the middle of the length of time in which I'm awake, between two lengths of time in which I'm asleep), when I tried to wash my clothes. The Doctor _had_ warned me that the washing machine was very powerful (I'll give him that one), so I wouldn't need a lot of detergent. So, obviously, I didn't put in much detergent. Unfortunately, my tiny amount of detergent was still, apparently, too much: within thirty seconds of turning the machine on, it had started to overflow. And when I say overflow, I mean _overflow_ – there were suds everywhere, including all over me. I tried to turn the dratted thing off, but it still kept oozing out suds. I realized that I was fighting a losing battle, and sheepishly trekked out to the control room to find the Doctor.

I saw the Doctor standing over the console, with his back to me. Hoping he wouldn't be angry at me, I took a deep breath and cleared my throat. "Um, Doctor?"

He turned around, opening his mouth to say something – but it turned into hysterical laughter, instead. "You look _ridiculous_!" he laughed. "Sorry, that was…" a pause to laugh a little more, "That was rude, wasn't it?" He took a breath to calm himself down. "Sorry," he said again, still giggling slightly. "But you are positively covered in suds! What _happened_ to you!?"

"I, uh, overflowed the washer, and now I can't get it to turn off," I said, looking at the ground. "Sorry."

"Aha, should have guessed," the Doctor nodded. "Don't worry, nearly everyone who's traveled with me has overflowed it at some point. Like I said, it is _very_ powerful. But, an overflowed washer is nothing the good ol' sonic screwdriver can't fix!" he said, bouncing away from the console. "C'mon, let's see what's happened…"

When we reached the laundry room, the Doctor opened the door. There were even more suds than when I'd left (since the machine was still going), and the Doctor was in awe. "Blimey! You _meant_ it when you said it had overflowed, eh? I thought Peri had done a number on it, but this is a seriously impressive amount of bubbles." He walked into the room and headed for the washer. About half-way in, he turned to look at me, but continued walking in the same direction. "No wonder you're so – "

Because he wasn't watching where he was walking, he stepped in a particularly soapy patch of suds. He barely had time to make a face before he was sitting on the ground, now quite bubble-covered himself. He blew away some bubbles that had landed on his nose, after his fall had sent them flying. "… Sudsy," he finished, deflated.

I was trying very, very hard not to laugh, and I was mostly succeeding. But the Doctor saw my shoulders shaking as I cautiously walked into the room. "Go ahead, feel free to laugh. I laughed at you, and now here I am, making a right fool of myself by not just getting covered in suds, but by _falling_ into them!"

I let out my pent-up giggles as I extended a hand to help him up. "Welcome to my world," I said cheerfully, once he was on his feet again.

He smiled at me. "Yeah, I probably deserved this." I just smiled back.

The Doctor fixed the washing machine, and the rest of my laundry went off without a hitch. (I was a bit worried that the drier would be extra-powerful, too, and that my clothes would catch fire or something. Thankfully, nothing of the sort happened.) In fact, by dinner time, the shindig had been essentially forgotten about. Unfortunately, though, it turned out to be only a short break from embarrassment.

After dinner, with my laundry all washed and dried, I headed back to my room to iron everything. I have a tendency to listen to music while I'm ironing; it helps it go by faster. I also have a tendency to sing along. I'd sort of stopped that, while at Gwen's, since Gwen and Rhys probably would have been able to hear anything but my quietest whisper-singing from anywhere else in the apartment. (I have a good voice – not that I mean to brag – but still, I didn't want to disturb them.) Here in the TARDIS, though, I realized, I could sing to my heart's content, as long as the Doctor wasn't in his room. (He might be able to hear me from there.) Seeing as, at that moment, the Doctor was tinkering in the control room (yes, still), I figured I was safe to sing along to my MP3 player – as long as I kept my door at least mostly shut.

So I set up the iron, ironing board, and MP3 player, and started my ironing. I didn't sing very loudly, just to be extra-safe; but, I didn't force myself to _not _sing, either. I was about half-way through the clothes-pile when Jewel's "Till We Run Out of Road" came on. I should mention that I've always loved this song in general; it's pretty, powerful, hopeful, bittersweet… just awesome. But this time, as I started singing along, I realized something: the lyrics were really fitting for anyone traveling with the Doctor (or the Doctor himself, for that matter). And, standing there in the TARDIS, in my very own bedroom, ironing my clothes… I was one of those anyones.

"_It's a roll of the dice / I never thought twice about the way I've been spending my time_…" I sang along. "… _Give it hell till the end / 'Cause once you quit, you can't get it back again_ / _We're leaving, leaving again / Can't recall where all we've been / I guess we'll just go / Go till we're too old / Or we run out of road…_"

By the time the mid-section came along, I was having entirely too much fun with that song. I was still keeping my volume in check, but I was pouring my very heart and soul into this little performance to no one (what can I say, I'm a performer at heart). "_All the late night drives that cause the dawns to strike you like a knife / Hey, man, this is a beautiful life_…"

The song finished, and I started skipping through songs (good old shuffle-mode) to find something else I felt like listening to. Before I found one, though, I heard a sound coming from my doorway. It sounded almost like… _clapping_?!

I pulled the ear buds out of ears and turned to face my door in one motion. I'd heard correctly: the Doctor was standing in my doorway (which, by the way, means he had to have opened my door the rest of the way – I'd had it ajar), smiling and clapping away.

"_Ohmigod_!" I exclaimed. Fearing the worst, I asked, "How long have you been standing there!?"

"Long enough to hear you sing most of that song," he grinned. "I heard something curious while I was out there making repairs, so I decided to come investigate. You did a great job of never once turning to face the door, you know."

I sank down on my bed and covered my face with my hands. "I was afraid of that."

"Don't be embarrassed!" the Doctor laughed. "I liked the song! Quite fitting, too, if you think about it." I looked up at him, and he smiled encouragingly. "Besides, you've got a really nice voice! You know, hence the clapping. I've had people travelling with me who were positively tone deaf, and they'd sing just as impassionedly as you just did…" He grimaced at the memories. "Trust me, you're a welcome change from that. Although, actually, come to think of it, it hasn't been too bad recently. Martha could sing quite nicely. Didn't sing too often, though, and she was always quiet about it. Rose, now she was considerably louder. I'd always tease her; pretend to yell at her for making too much noise…" He trailed off, thinking. "She never cared, either, just went right on singing. Actually," he considered, "I think my telling her not to sing just encouraged her to do it more often. Luckily she had a lovely voice."

"I bet she did," I said, before I could stop myself. When he'd mentioned Rose singing, I'd immediately thought of the Billie Piper songs I had on my MP3 player and my lap top – but I wasn't sure if that was something the Doctor should know about.

I was hoping that the Doctor would just let my comment go, maybe assume that I was merely politely agreeing with him. Unfortunately, the ever-astute Doctor apparently noticed that I was speaking from some sort of position of knowledge. He looked at me, confused. "Hm?"

I didn't think that there was any way for me to get out answering him. "In my dimension, the girl who played Rose, Billie Piper, was a professional singer before she acted," I started uncertainly. When the Doctor didn't do anything to stop me from explaining, I continued. "I always thought that Billie's voice was pretty, so when you said that Rose had a nice voice, I wasn't surprised." I shrugged. "I didn't want to mention anything about it, because I don't know if correlating the two dimensions like that might, I don't know, bring about the end of the world or something, or if you might…" I paused. What I really thought was that it might be hard for him to hear, it being Rose and all; but as _that _might be difficult for him to hear, too, I fished around for something less painful. "You know, it must be awkward to hear about someone who 'played' a friend of yours, as if your friend wasn't real… I mean, obviously she _was_ real, here, it's just…" I shook my head. "You know?" I implored.

The Doctor nodded. "I understand. But it's alright – and no, the world won't end," he added with a not-fully-heartfelt smile. I could tell that his head was somewhere else.

I soon found out where, too. He cleared his throat and made a very ineffective attempt at appearing uninterested in what he asked me. "So, then, you've uh… You've heard this Billie person sing, then?"

"Not in person or anything, but I've got her CDs," I nodded.

Even his pretense of seeming uninterested fell then – no matter how much it hadn't been working in the first place. He looked straight at me. "You have them? As in, with you?"

"On my MP3 player and my lap top, yup." I had a hunch as to where this was going, but I wanted to wait until he said it.

I didn't have to wait very long. "You do? Because, it's just that…" He trailed off, and started again. "I was just… Would you mind… Playing something, then? On the laptop? I'd like to hear it. If, you know, you don't…"

I smiled at him. "What? Mind? Why would I mind? Come on in. I'd be happy to play something; just let me find a good one for you…" Luckily, my lap top was already on, so I just called up my media player and scanned through Billie's albums. I mentally chose one and turned back to the Doctor, who had sat down at my desk chair.

"Here," I said. "The song's called 'Walk of Life,' and it's pretty fitting to this life, too."

"And then the woman went on to play one of my friends," the Doctor smiled, appreciating the coincidence. I smiled and nodded.

I was about to hit 'play' when I had a thought. I turned back to the Doctor and said, "I'll just stand outside for this one. I…" Once again I found myself searching for an acceptable reason. Really, I thought he might not want some mostly-random person sitting with him while he was, essentially, listening to Rose's voice for the first time in goodness only knows how long. But since I was too afraid to actually say that, I had to pick something else. "I won't be able to stop myself from singing along. I have a singing complex, and you should be listening to her, not me." I half-smiled, half-grimaced. "God knows you've already heard me, anyway."

The Doctor laughed. I thought I might have seen a flash of understanding in his eyes – like he knew that I wasn't being entirely truthful about my reasons for leaving – but he didn't voice it. All he said was, "I don't want to kick you out of your room… But if you insist."

"It's fine," I assured him. "Enjoy," I added as I walked toward the door.

Just as I'd stepped over the threshold, the Doctor called my name. "Cate?" I turned back to look at him. He smiled at me, and there was no mistaking the understanding in his eyes this time. "Thanks," he said. I just smiled back and nodded, before closing the door.

I stood outside the door; I could still hear the music playing from inside my room. I waited until the song was over, plus about half a minute more, before reentering the room.

The Doctor must have heard me come in, because he turned to look at me. "That's her voice, alright. Rose." His smile was sad and his voice somewhat distant, but otherwise he seemed fine. "You know, the best part is, if Rose were ever to become a professional singer, I swear this would be her style of music."

"From what I've seen of her, I think you're right," I laughed. I thought about some of Billie Piper's other songs, and about Rose. "Yeah, I think you're definitely right."

The Doctor laughed a bit, too, then stood up with a sigh. "Well, I suppose I should get back to my TARDIS maintenance," he said. "I sort of abandoned it when your singing caught my attention."

"Right," I nodded. "And I suppose I should get back to my ironing."

The Doctor walked towards the door, but it was my turn to call his name just before he stepped out of the room. "Doctor?" He turned back to look at me, eyebrow raised. "I was just thinking…" I paused, fighting back a giggle. I had a funny feeling that what I was about to say would end… well, funnily. "The girl who played Rose in my dimension could sing, and so could Rose. Do you think there's a correlation?"

The Doctor thought for a moment. "There might be; you never know. They could have been tapping into each other's talent, I suppose. It doesn't really seem likely, but it's possible, maybe. Why?"

That's what I was hoping he'd ask. "Well, it's just… David Tennant, the guy who plays _you_… He can sing really well, too." I smiled sweetly and shrugged.

As I'd suspected would happen, the Doctor's eyes widened. "Oh, no. No. Don't you go getting any ideas."

"I think it's a bit late for that request, Doctor," I answered.

"I don't sing," he said.

"That doesn't mean that you _can't_…"

"But I _don't._" He shook his head. "I just… don't." He paused. "Okay, there was that time that I was pretending to be drunk, but that entirely doesn't count. And maybe sometimes when no one's around. But certainly not when people might hear me, oh no. Never."

"I don't know, maybe you should give it a try sometime," I laughed.

"Well, I _do_ know, and I say…" He paused, looking flustered. "I say that I have repairs to be making and… and stuff to be adjusting! And that _you_ have clothes to be ironing! _That_ is what I have to say to your suggestions, young miss."

I put my hands up in mock surrender. "Fine, fine, you win."

"Good."

"For now."

"Oi!" He looked ready to launch into another round of arguing with me, but then he just laughed (a genuine laugh, which marked a nice change from the sad smiles of the past few minutes). "Oh, Miss Thomas, this is going to be quite the adventure, traveling with you."

"Just as long as it's a good one," I smiled.

He smiled back. "Oh, I definitely think so." Finally he turned and left my room. "Enjoy your ironing, Cate."

"And you have fun with those repairs!" I called after him.

Looking back on the day's events, I think I might have been wrong at the beginning of this entry. Maybe saying that laundry on the TARDIS is dangerous, isn't quite accurate. Sure, I overflowed the washer, got covered in suds, and got caught singing far too enthusiastically… But I dare say it _ended _really well. And I guess, in the end, that's most important part.

* * *

_  
A/N #2: Point of (possible) interest, the part with the washing machine in the beginning is actually based on a true story, and is the plot bunny that inspired me to write this whole story in the first place. I actually know someone who was trying to do her laundry, but then the machine broke down… And what happens to Cate is pretty much exactly what happened to this person, just slightly exaggerated (except in place of the Doctor, it was this person's neighbor)._


	6. Voicemails

_A/N: Sorry this took so long to post… I've been trying to get things up as quickly as possible so that I can catch up with the show – you know, before the series ends (which I think I may just be able to do!) – but this chapter was tough to write. Hopefully you think it's worth it!_

_Speaking of catching up with the show: in this chapter, Cate finally starts experiencing series 4, which I'd wanted her to do all along! And I know it seems to kind of start in the middle of things – this is because Cate's already written the whole "WOAH IT'S DONNA! And babies made of fat!" entry, but seeing as we all already saw that episode, it's not necessary to write a whole chapter on it. (There is a general summary of "Fires of Pompeii" in this chapter, but it's there for reference and I tried to keep it as short as possible. Oh, that reminds me…)_

_SPOILER ALERT!! Slightly for "Partners in Crime," a general summary of "Fires of Pompeii," and quite a big one for "Reset" and "Dead Man Walking" over in "Torchwood." Just thought I'd warn you, to be safe._

_As always, thanks for reading and reviewing. Also as always, I don't own "Doctor Who" or anything related to it; this is just for fun. Enjoy the chapter!_

* * *

Entry #10

Would you believe me if I said that a trip to ancient Pompeii (which was supposed to be ancient _Rome_, anyway) on the day that Vesuvius exploded was overshadowed by a couple of voicemails? Because, that's how it happened, and I barely believe myself. Or the voice mails, for that matter. But I guess that life with the Doctor (and Torchwood) is just full of surprises.

It all started as the Doctor, Donna, and I were in transit to the at-that-moment unknown location of Donna's first _official_ TARDIS trip (she'd obviously been on the TARDIS before, but this time she was meant to be here). While the Doctor was in the control room setting the coordinates, I helped Donna set up her room (which is one before mine, heading down the hall from the control room) and showed her around our main area of the TARDIS. We ended in the den, where we paused to relax a bit before the next big adventure. We needed to regain some energy after running around the Adipose Industries factory for hours before, after all.

"So, you're from America, right?" Donna asked as we plopped into two of the den's squishy arm chairs.

"Yeah," I answered. "Vermont, actually."

"Yeah, thought so, from the accent," she nodded. "Well, not the Vermont part, I'm not that good! But, you know… Had the country right." A grin came across her face. "So, what were _you_ up to when the Doctor crashed into _your _life?"

I laughed. "Actually… I think _I _kind of crashed into _his_."

"Come to think of it, I think I know how you feel," she responded. "What happened?"

So I launched into my story. I told her how I'd come from another dimension; how I'd worked for Torchwood; and how I wound up traveling with the Doctor in the end. Once I finished, she just stared at me, wide-eyed.

"You know what? I think that beats my story. I thought I was good, getting zapped onto the TARDIS and helping to save the world in my wedding dress because my fiancé was in cahoots with some great bloody spider-woman from the stars. Which you apparently already knew about, anyway, what with the whole TV thing; which is odd in its own right…" She paused, looking serious all of a sudden. "I'm really sorry, though. About your home, I mean. You can't get back, can you?"

I shook my head. "It doesn't seem it. But I'm not going to give up completely. The Doctor himself used to say, 'Never say never-ever,' so…" I shrugged. "Besides," I added with a smile, "I've built a friends-and-family structure here, too. At least I'm not alone."

Donna smiled back. "Good attitude to have, that. Always looking on the bright side!"

"I try!" I replied.

Then Donna spotted the Scattergories box on the floor (the Doctor and I had had a game going, before we went to investigate Adipose Industries). She let out a little gasp. "Oh, my God, I _love_ Scattergories! I used to play that all the time with my Dad and Gramps; since Dad passed away, we haven't played, though…" She had a nostalgic look on her face for just a couple of seconds, before it turned back to surprise. "Hang on, you've seriously got _Scattergories_ on the TARDIS? I mean, isn't it just some silly little Earth game, or something?"

"Well, there's lots of other stuff here, too," I told her. "Earth games from every time period, past and future; games from other planets, other galaxies… All sorts of stuff. But," I added with a sigh, "I should tell you that Scattergories is no 'silly little Earth game' when you play with the Doctor. He knows far, _far _too many words. It's hopeless thinking you'll win against him, but it's funny just to hear the things he comes up with."

"I can only imagine," Donna said, laughing. She got up to examine the Scattergories box… And was promptly thrown to the floor when the TARDIS gave a sudden jolt. "Ow!" she exclaimed from her new position on the floor. "What the hell was that about!?"

I held back a giggle. Poor Donna. "I think we've landed," I explained, getting off of the couch to give her a hand up.

"That's what it's like to land!?" she asked, once she was back on her feet. "Is it _always_ that bumpy?"

"Not always, but pretty often," I laughed. "Come on, let's go see where we are – and when." We headed out to the control room to meet the Doctor, with Donna keeping one hand on a wall the whole way (just in case the TARDIS decided to knock her off her feet again, presumably).

"Great!" he said when he saw us. "I was just going to come get you to tell you we'd arrived."

"Yeah, we noticed, actually," Donna responded, half-jokingly huffy. "Hit a bit of a bump there, Spaceman?"

"Oi!" the Doctor exclaimed defensively. "Don't knock it!" He patted the console. "She's a good ship, the TARDIS. Just a bit… shaky at times. You'll get used to it." He started to grin. "Anyway. If you two ladies will just follow me, I'd like to introduce you to…" He led us out the TARDIS door and into a dusty outdoor market place, bustling with people. "… Ancient Rome!" he finished brightly.

Of course, like I mentioned, it wasn't really ancient Rome; it was Pompeii, the day that Vesuvius exploded. It was just a strange day all around; not the best first trip for poor Donna. First, someone bought the TARDIS, so we had to go hunt it down. (I hope that the Doctor's learned not to park it in a marketplace and then leave it unattended ever again.) Then there were these soothsayers intent on making ominous predictions, that didn't even seem to be anywhere near accurate (one said that there was something on Donna's back, which there _clearly_ wasn't – I checked), but were eerie all the same. Then poor Donna got captured by psychics, and shortly thereafter was rescued again by the Doctor and I. Not long after that, the three of us caused the Vesuvius explosion, because blowing the volcano up from the inside was the only way to stop this violent rock-creature who planned on doing various and sundry terrible things to the world.

I write that like it was simple, but it really wasn't. It was especially tough for the Doctor: he knew he had to blow up Vesuvius, because obviously it happened and because he had to save Earth; but, that also meant killing the entire population of Pompeii. He did what he had to do, in the end, with support from Donna and me. Although, not everyone in Pompeii died… we wound up saving the family who'd bought the TARDIS. Donna begged the Doctor to spare _someone's_ life, because we _could_; at first, the Doctor was adamant that we couldn't, but in the end Donna convinced him, with only the tiniest bit of help from me. (Basically, I told the Doctor that I agreed with Donna, and that was it. I was wishing that the Doctor would save someone, too, but he looked so sad telling me and Donna that he couldn't that I didn't have the heart to argue with him. Donna, however, saw the bigger picture and kept at it, eventually bringing him to her/our side, without hurting him too much. She was brilliant!)

And so, the world was saved, and the Doctor, Donna, and I returned to the TARDIS for (hopefully) a good, long rest. We lounged around in the den for a bit, trying to lighten the mood. About an hour later, maybe, while the Doctor and Donna were having a good-natured argument over the best ice cream flavor, I noticed my cell phone sitting on a table across the room; I'd completely forgotten that I'd never brought it back to my room after our Scattergories game was interrupted. I went over to pick it up, because I knew if I waited until we all left the den, I'd probably forget it again. When I got to it, I noticed that I had two voice mails.

This was interesting, because I hadn't gotten any calls since I got on the TARDIS. I'd called Jack and had him put me on speakerphone after I'd been settled into TARDIS life for about a relative week (though they'd told me I'd only been gone three days), just to let them know that I was alright and having a good time, and to see how they were doing down in Cardiff. It had been maybe three relative weeks since then, for me, and I hadn't talked to the Torchwood team since that phone call (except for a quick email conversation with Tosh, who'd wanted to tell me that Owen had actually agreed to take her on a date!). I'd kept thinking that I wanted to call or email the rest of them, but something always came up… Seeing that I had two voicemails made me a little worried that maybe it had been a lot longer than three weeks for them, and that they were upset and/or worried that I hadn't been in contact.

I opened my phone, and sure enough, the calls were from Torchwood – one from Gwen, and one from Ianto; Ianto's came just fifteen minutes after Gwen's. Something about that seemed strange to me, so I was a little apprehensive as I dialed my voicemail box.

The message from Gwen started playing. "_Hi, Cate, it's Gwen_," she said. I immediately could tell that I was right to be worried – she sounded like she was holding back tears, and partially failing. "_I, uh… I thought – we thought you should know… Owen…_" She took a steadying breath that seemed to me to take forever. "_Owen was shot, and killed, just a half hour ago, maybe._"

"What!?" I said out loud, without meaning to. I barely noticed the Doctor and Donna suddenly stop their arguing to look at me as I rushed out of the den and towards my room, where I could listen to the rest of Gwen's message where it was quiet. (Like I said, I hadn't entirely noticed that the den _was _now quiet.)

"_He's got some information that we need, though, so we're… we're going to use the Resurrection Gauntlet on him, so he can tell us…_" Another steadying breath. "_And, we want to say goodbye. I was going to keep you on the phone so you could say goodbye, too, but you're uh… you're not here, so… I'm sorry. I'll just tell him you said goodbye, because I know you'll want me to…_"

I couldn't believe it. Owen? Dead? And I'd missed my chance to say goodbye…

I only realized that Gwen's message had ended when I heard the automated mailbox woman asking me if I was still there. I saved Gwen's message, and moved on to Ianto's. As he began to speak, I noticed that his voice was steadier than Gwen's, though not by too much.

"_Hi, Cate, this is Ianto… Um, I know that Gwen called you to tell you about Owen, and… Well, you can kind of ignore that message_."

"What?!" I said, for the second time. That didn't make any sense!

"_The Resurrection Gauntlet usually only brings people back to life for a very short amount of time, but something seems to have gone… differently. Owen's still here, and shows no signs of being not here any time soon. Of course, we have no idea what's going on, so conceivably he could go at any minute…_" I found myself nervously chuckling at Ianto's uncharacteristic lack of grace with that statement. He must really be flustered. "_But he's here right now. Sort of. He's not really alive – no breathing, no heart beat, none of that. But his brain's going strong, so for all intents and purposes… We haven't lost Owen. We thought you might like to know._" There was a short pause_. _"_Um… Hope you're enjoying yourself – though, I don't know, after these messages, that might be tricky, sorry… Erm, hope to talk to you soon. Take care._"

The message ended, and I saved that one, too. I hung up the phone and just sat on my bed for a while, running over what I'd just heard. Only at Torchwood…

I was about to call Gwen back to let her know that I'd gotten the messages, when there was a knock on my door. "Cate?" I heard Donna call from the other side. "Can I come in?"

I told her that she could, and she opened the door, walking in tentatively. She looked concerned. "I just wanted to make sure that everything's alright?"

"I… I'm really not sure, to be honest," I answered. "One of my friends from Torchwood called while we were out, to tell me that…" I paused. "That one of our other friends and co-workers, Owen, had just died."

"Oh my God," Donna said, taking a seat next to me on the bed. "I'm so sorry; that's terrible..."

"Yeah, it was," I nodded. "The thing is, there was a second phone call, from another one of my friends, saying that Owen's not really dead anymore, apparently."

"He's what?" Donna asked. "How is that even possible?"

"Welcome to Torchwood," I laughed sadly. "We have this thing that can bring people back to life for a little while, and they used it on Owen because he knew something important, and because they wanted to say goodbye…" I shook my head. "But for some reason, Owen's still going. He's not alive, really, because his heart's not beating and he's not breathing, but his brain's going, so he's… I don't know, animated?" I grimaced. Something about that word, "animated," just seemed so cold. This was Owen I was talking about, not some horror-movie monster; all the same, I couldn't think of another accurate term.

"Wow," Donna said after processing what I'd told her. "I don't know if I should be telling you that I'm sorry or that I'm happy for you."

"Don't worry," I told her, "neither do I." I sighed and shrugged my shoulders. "Anyway, I'll be back out in the den in a few minutes; I just want to call my friends at Torchwood to let them know that I got their messages."

"Of course, take your time," Donna responded understandingly as she headed to the door. Just before leaving, she turned back to me. "Really, though – you going to be alright?"

I smiled at her. "Yeah, I should be; it was just a shock, you know?" She nodded from the doorway. "Thanks, though, Donna."

"Don't mention it," she replied, shutting the door.

I didn't call Gwen just then, though, or Ianto, or any of the Torchwood team. I decided to write this first – mainly because I was still working out what to say to the team, but also because I wanted to wait until I was sure that I could maintain at least some of my composure while on the phone (tears and cell phones don't mix; I've learned that the hard way). Writing it all out helped, though. I mean, I'm still in shock, but I'm less… something. I don't really know; I'm not quite sure _what _I'm feeling. I'm sad that he died in the first place, happy that he's not gone, sad that he's got to live this strange partial-life, happy that he gets a second chance… I just don't know. But I do know that I should definitely call the team now – and that, whatever the protocol is for situations like this (if there even is a protocol), it must include keeping the affected person in your prayers. That, at the very least, is something that I can do.


	7. Success! Sort of, pt1

_A/N: As always, thanks to everyone who's reading! I hope you're enjoying it. _

_I noticed, writing this chapter, that there has been a conspicuous lack of good bad guys (if that makes sense) in my story thus far. There's trouble to be had, but bad guys? Not so frightening. So, that will be remedied (if all goes to plan) in the next story. (Not the next chapter, because that's the conclusion of this one – I think I've strayed into classic "Who" territory, where all the stories were multi-episode ones – but the chapter after that.)_

_Anyway, enjoy the chapter! _

_Disclaimer: "Doctor Who" isn't mine, and I am more than happy to give credit to the brilliant people behind it._

* * *

Entry #12

"Now, _that's_ more like it!" the Doctor practically chirped, turning around to face Donna and me after poking his head out of the TARDIS door. He was grinning from ear to ear. "Guess where we are, Cate. Just guess."

"Um… Raxicoricofallipatorius?" I shrugged. I had absolutely no idea where we might be, to tell the truth, but "Raxicoricofallipatorius" is fun to say (once you get it down), so that seemed as good a guess as any.

"Nope, better than that," the Doctor responded, still grinning.

"Mars," Donna supplied, as more of a statement than a question. She flashed him a not-quite-innocent smile.

"No, not that either, thanks, Donna," the Doctor said. He rolled his eyes. "And for the umpteenth time, I'm _not _from Mars!"

"I know that," Donna answered, with a look that plainly said, "_Duh._" "But just because I know that, doesn't mean I can't tease you about it anyway."

The Doctor opened his mouth to retort, but I cut him off before the two of them could launch into another debate. "So where are we, really, Doctor?"

"Right!" The ear-to-ear grin was back in a flash. "As it happens, we are on a very lovely planet quite, quite far from Earth, where all of the cities are underwater, encased in super-strong glass bubbles…" He trailed off, and looked pointedly at me. It took me a couple of seconds to realize why.

"Wait, underwater cities in… Doctor, are we on Mancaterra?" I asked excitedly.

The Doctor nodded. "Yep! I decided to give it another go, and this time we actually got there!"

Donna raised an eyebrow. "What's this? Am I understanding that you meant to go here before, but… what, missed?"

"Actually, that's pretty much it," I told her. "My first-ever TARDIS trip was supposed to be here, but we wound up on a planet in our solar system that hasn't been discovered yet, in our time."

"I see," she said, then turned to the Doctor. "So, you _missed_?"

The Doctor gave me a betrayed look. "Thanks for the support, Cate," he said, while I put on my sweetest, most innocent smile. (It seemed to work.) "And I didn't 'miss,' Donna," the Doctor continued, turning to face her, "the TARDIS simply decided to go somewhere else."

"What, all on its own, then?" Donna asked, sarcastically. "Do spaceships and time machines think all of a sudden now?"

The Doctor just grinned at her and walked out the door, leaving it open for us to follow. I started after him, but Donna didn't move. I turned back to ask her if she was coming, but she spoke before I could.

"It's… The TARDIS _thinks_?" she asked, gazing around the control room. "It can't think. It just… can't." She looked at me. "_Does_ it?"

I smiled at her. "I don't know exactly how the TARDIS works – sometimes I wonder if the Doctor knows exactly how the TARDIS works, really," I mused, "but I think the short, easy answer is, 'yes.'"

She stared at me, open-mouthed. "That… but… no, it's a…"

I chuckled. "Come on, Donna, let's go follow the Doctor before he leaves without us."

I turned to walk out the door, and heard Donna following behind me this time. I am also almost positive that I also heard her mutter, "Sorry if I insulted you," just before stepping out of the TARDIS.

As Donna and I walked over to the Doctor, I took in the surroundings. I was standing on the sandy sea floor of a bubbled-in city. I noticed that the TARDIS, for once, did not appear to be _too_ out of place – the buildings in the city were made out of something that looked like coral, and came in every shape, size, and color imaginable (including TARDIS-blue). Beings who I figured must be the native people of Mancaterra, as they looked something like humanoid dolphins, were milling about the area. Possibly most impressive, though, was the view of the surrounding ocean: like the Doctor had mentioned, the city walls were made of glass, so all around me I could see oceanic creatures and plants the likes of which I had never seen before.

"This is amazing!" I said, beaming. "This – I mean, _look _at this! It's just…"

"Beautiful," Donna supplied for me. "Colorful, but still… _gorgeous_."

The Doctor grinned back at us. "You haven't even truly seen the planet yet! Imagine what you'll think _after_ you experience everything the lovely planet of Mancaterra has to offer?" He started walking away, towards what looked to be the center of the city. "Let's find out, shall we?"

The Doctor knew of a nice little park not too far from where the TARDIS had materialized, so we headed over that way. Before we got there, however, Donna spotted a kiosk selling all sorts of strange-looking – but delicious-looking – treats.

"Come on, Doctor, let's just stop there for a second," she pleaded. "We can have snacks in the park; a right little picnic!" She looked to me for support, and I enthusiastically nodded my approval.

"Ah, well, I can't turn down a picnic," the Doctor smiled. He led Donna and I over to the kiosk, adding, "I wonder if they've got that biscuit-custard-thing I had the last time I was here, that was _amazing_…"

Before we could reach the stall, however, two very large and identically dressed Mancaterrans walked up to the three of us. They stopped directly in front of us, blocking our path. They both were looking directly at the Doctor – and they did not look friendly.

"You are the Time Lord known as 'the Doctor,' correct?" one of them asked.

"Erm, yes," the Doctor nodded, looking slightly puzzled. "The Doctor, that's me. Why do you ask?"

"Because we have a warrant to place the Doctor under arrest," the other Mancaterran answered.

"What!?" the Doctor asked, taken aback. "What did I do? And, you know, when? I've barely been here for ten minutes!"

But the Mancaterrans (police officers, so it seemed) were already handcuffing the Doctor. "Five years ago, you visited Mancaterra on holiday," the first officer explained. "When you learned that our President at the time was ill, you examined him, and found that he had, as you put it, 'a simple potassium deficiency.' You tried to help him by suggesting he consume some strange alien fruit."

"Yes, a banana!" the Doctor exclaimed. (Leave it to the Doctor to solve a problem with a banana.) "Bananas are hardly cause for arrest, you know! In fact, I tend to think that they're quite an enjoyable – "

The second officer jerked the handcuffs closed quite harshly, cutting the Doctor off. "The President's condition worsened mere hours after you left. It was a miracle that he lived at all."

The Doctor blinked. "Oh. Erm. I'm sorry, _really_ sorry. Apparently, bananas weren't the answer, then. Mustn't have agreed with his digestive system. Or, maybe, they simply didn't have any effect at all, and he just needed to get worse before he got better. I hope that last one's the answer, really; I'd hate to be responsible for his discomfort, no matter how unwittingly I might have – "

"You will remain silent until further notice," the second officer interrupted once again. "You will be held in the city prison until your trial."

"Trial!?" the Doctor asked. "For _what!?_ What is it, exactly, that I'm being accused of?"

"Once count of attempted murder, and one count of an attempted overthrow of the government," the first officer listed. "And if you don't shut up, we'll add a third count of resisting arrest!" And with that, the Doctor was dragged away by one of the two burly Mancaterrans.

"Oi!" Donna yelled after the officer escorting the Doctor. "You bring him back here! You bring him back here right now!" Realizing that this was having less than no effect, she turned to the officer that had stayed with us. "Well, what are you doing, then, still standing here? I sure hope you're gonna explain exactly what's going on, Mister, because we have a right to know! That man you just dragged away, he's our friend, _and _our guide! This isn't even our planet; without him, we're lost, so we deserve to know why we've not got him anymore!"

The remaining officer listened to Donna's rant without ever changing his facial expression. Once she'd finished, he stated simply, "I'm here to place the two of _you _under arrest."

"_What!?_" Donna and I said together. "Listen, Mister," Donna continued impassionedly, "we weren't even here five years back, when the Doctor did this whole thing with the banana."

"That I assure you he did _not _mean to do," I added.

"That too," Donna agreed. "Anyway, we weren't here, so what are you arresting us for?"

"You said that the Doctor is your friend and guide, yes?" the officer asked. I groaned quietly as Donna nodded – I knew where this was going. "Then you were aiding an enemy of the state," he said, taking out two pairs of handcuffs and fastening Donna's and my hands behind our backs. He led us away in the same direction the Doctor had gone.

Before long, we arrived at the jail. We were fingerprinted and photographed and the like, then escorted to cells in the basement of the prison. Neither Donna nor I saw the Doctor anywhere in the jail house – which meant that we were on our own in getting out.

"Well," I said to Donna with an attempt at cheerfulness, "at least we're in the minimum security section. We've probably just got… petty thieves for neighbors, or something, instead of murderers."

There was a sad-sounding chuckle from the cell across the walkway. "Not all thievery is petty, you know," the cell's Mancaterran inhabitant said.

"I'm… sorry?" I said to him, somewhat confused. I wasn't sure where he was going with this.

"S'alright," he shrugged. "I'm sitting in a jail cell. I don't expect anyone to think too highly of me."

"Yeah, well, we're sitting in a jail cell too, mate," Donna said kindly to him. "We're in the same boat."

"Guess so," he said, with another sad chuckle. "So, what'd you ladies do to get thrown in here? Don't see too much of your kind on Mancaterra often, and they certainly don't usually wind up in jail."

"Tell me about it," Donna replied with a half-hearted smile. "We were just traveling through, with a friend. But then he got thrown in here for…" She paused, seeming to think better of telling this man what the Doctor had actually done. "I don't even know, really," she lied, "but it was something that happened a while ago, long before Cate or I even knew him."

"And it was a complete and total accident," I interjected.

"It was," Donna agreed, nodding. "All the same, we weren't here for long before the police took him down, and then did the same to us because we were friends with him."

"I'm sorry about your bad luck, ladies," the man across the walkway said. "I should tell you, though, you'll get out pretty easily. Once it's proven that you didn't know this friend of yours when he committed his crime, and that you knew nothing about it until today, you'll get off scot-free."

"That's heartening," Donna started, "but how are we gonna prove it? I doubt they'd listen to us…"

"They've got ways of getting people to tell the truth," the man shrugged. He must have noticed the frightened looks that Donna and I sent each other, because he quickly added, "Oh, no, not like that! We've got extremely accurate lie detectors, that's all," he explained. "And, in really major cases, there's a plant that grows here on Mancaterra that works like a truth potion, pretty much. The person loses the ability to lie, or even adjust information. Everything they say is entirely truthful, with nothing left out."

"Oh! Well, that's alright, I guess," I said. "Doesn't sound too difficult." Our neighbor shook his head in agreement.

"So, what did _you_ do, then, if you don't mind my asking?" Donna asked the man across the walkway. "And what's your name, by the way? I'm Donna, and this is Cate."

"Nice to meet you, Donna, Cate," he said, nodding to each of us in turn. "My name's Kalvor. And, as for what I did…" He sighed. "Well, like I said, not all thievery is petty. My family'd fallen on some hard times; my wife lost her job, and my hours were cut drastically a year or so back. We were making due for a while, but with four kids to take care of, it got tough." He paused, and looked off into space. "When I saw those _four reams_ of paper just sitting there, unattended in the park that day a month ago…" He shook his head. "I know that I shouldn't have taken them, but my family had to eat. My _children _had to eat. I like to think that my reasons were honorable, even if my actions weren't."

"Course they were," Donna said supportively.

"Tell you what," I added, "I've got plenty of paper on the TARDIS, and I don't really need it. I'd be happy to drop some off for your family. I don't know how much paper constitutes a proper meal, but every little bit helps."

I expected Kalvor to look thankful, but instead, he looked confused. Then, a look of understanding came over his face. "Oh, no, I'm sorry, I mustn't have made myself clear," he started. "We don't _eat _paper – but, it's extremely valuable. See, we don't have a currency system on Mancaterra, we barter. Because trees don't grow well in our sandy soil, paper is one of the most valuable things someone can trade. That's why finding four full reams of paper was so amazing. That much paper would have cost me about six months' income – and I'm talking in terms of before my hours were cut."

"Oh," I said, embarrassed by my blunder. "Well, um, the point still stands, though. I'd be happy to drop some paper off for your family. I haven't got four reams of it, but I think I've got two."

"And I've got one, so that's three, total," Donna put it.

"I couldn't ask you two to do that," Kalvor said, wide-eyed. "You two could use that paper!"

"Yeah, but it's really easy to come by back on Earth," Donna explained. "We'll just buy more; it's cheap, so don't worry about it."

"No, I mean you could use it here!" Kalvor said. "With all that paper, you could easily pay your bail – both of yours, and your friend's, too! You'll have to convince the guards you've got it, but all that means is subjecting yourself to a lie-detector test."

"I hadn't even thought about that!" I exclaimed. "That's wonderful!"

"And I don't even think we'll need those lie detectors," Donna said, reaching into her pants pocket, "because I've got this." She pulled out a little notepad, with a small pencil stuck through the spiral part. "Now, see, I've been a temp for a while, and when you're a secretary, you learn that you never, ever go anywhere without a pencil and notepad. Not even an alien planet," she finished with a broad grin. "And if this can get one of us out of here, she can return with the three reams of paper – physical proof that we've got it." She looked at Kalvor. "What do you say, you think this might buy one of us a ticket out of here?"

He squinted from his vantage point across the walkway. "You know, I really think it might."

"Perfect!" Donna beamed and handed the notepad over to me. "You go. You know the TARDIS better than I do; you'll know where you might be able to rustle up some extra paper, if needed. Oh, and mine's in the top-left drawer of my desk."

"You sure?" I asked.

"Yes, I'm sure," she answered with an air of finality. "Now, we just need to wait for a guard to walk by – then we'll put our plan into action!"


	8. Happy Paper Trails to You, pt2

_Disclaimer: "Doctor Who" isn't mine, and I have no desire to steal the credit from the people it does belong to, because they're brilliant._

_A/N: Thanks for reading and reviewing, everyone! I hope you're enjoying it, and that you'll enjoy this chapter, too!_

_(P.S. Yes, I did make Cate get lost in that particular way on purpose. You'll see. )_

* * *

Entry #12, con't.

Donna and I waited rather impatiently for about a half hour for a guard to walk by, so I could let him know that I had enough paper to get myself out of prison. Finally, Donna spotted one coming down the hall, so I turned on the charm as he neared our cell door. "Excuse me, sir!" I called as sweetly as I could manage.

He paused, then walked over to me. "What do you want?"

I was a bit worried by his lack of friendliness, but I maintained my cheerful smile and (hopefully) charming attitude. "I'm under the impression that paper is very valuable here."

"Okay. And?"

"Well, I just so happen to have a notepad here," I said, showing it to him. I fought back a grin as his eyes widened greedily. "And I was wondering if this would be enough to cover my bail?"

"Oh, I should say so," the guard responded, never taking his eyes off of the notepad. "I'll go get the Chief…" He shook his head as if to come back to reality, and walked towards the door leading back upstairs.

Once he was out of earshot, I turned back to Donna. We gave each other a high-five, beaming.

"Good job, ladies," Kalvor said with a smile from across the walkway.

Donna and I beamed back at him. "We couldn't have done it without your help, though," Donna said.

"She's right," I added. "Without you, we never would have known that Donna was holding the key to our freedom this whole time! And don't you worry, Kalvor – we'll get you out of here, too." He just smiled in response.

It wasn't long before the guard returned with someone that I assumed was the Chief of Police. Luckily, the Police Chief reacted the same way as the guard had to the notepad, and within minutes I was walking out of the jail house, a free woman.

"Now," I thought to myself, "let's just hope I can find my way back to the TARDIS!"

Thankfully, we'd taken a pretty direct route to the jail house, so it wasn't too hard to retrace my steps. I took a right turn where I should have turned left once, but it was easily fixed, and that was my only blunder. I soon found myself face-to-face with the TARDIS.

… Let me rephrase that. The _locked_ TARDIS. And I didn't have a key.

"You've got to be kidding me…" I thought to myself. I leaned against the door and sighed. Then I turned around, looked straight at the TARDIS, and thought with all of my might, "Is there any chance you could somehow unlock yourself and let me in? It's urgent! The Doctor's been arrested and I need to get in to pick up some paper to break him and Donna out of jail!" (The TARDIS is alive, after all, so I figured I may as well _try_ talking to her. Though my last sentence was so bizarre that I wouldn't have blamed her for not letting me in simply because she thought I'd lost my mind.) After about a minute, I tried jiggling the door again – but to no avail. The TARDIS either hadn't heard me, wasn't able to unlock herself, or just didn't want to let me in.

I was about to start figuring out where I could scavenge a whole bunch of paper from, when I had another idea. I remembered seeing an old episode of "Doctor Who," from the classic series (though I can't even remember which Doctor, or what was going on), where someone took a spare TARDIS key from behind the "Police Public Call Box" sign on the top of the door. Hoping against all hope, I stood on my tip-toes and ran my hand behind the box.

Sure enough, behind the "a" in the word, "Call," I found a key! (I thought the key used to be behind one of the "p"s, but I guess it's moved.) I inserted it into the lock, and finally made my way into the TARDIS. I ran straight to my room and grabbed all of my paper packages, then moved on to Donna's and grabbed hers. I threw them into a big purse I'd taken from my room, and zoomed back out of the TARDIS, stuffing the spare key in my pocket after locking the door behind me.

I sprinted back to the jail and told the receptionist that I was there to pay the bail for three of my friends. She nodded and directed me to the Chief of Police's office – apparently, he dealt directly with bail issues. I knocked on his door and was beckoned in by the familiar voice of the Police Chief (we'd talked when he let me out of my cell).

His jaw dropped when he saw who it was who was standing at his door. "You again? What are you doing back here?"

"I'm here to bail three of my friends out of jail," I said, matter-of-factly.

"Three?" he asked, skeptical. "There was the woman you were imprisoned with, I'm sure, but who are the other two?"

"Kalvor – the prisoner across the walkway from Donna's and my cell, though I unfortunately don't know his last name – and the Doctor," I answered.

The Police Chief raised an eyebrow at me. "Donna and Kalvor I can help you with, as long as you've got the funds to cover their bail. But the Doctor? No can do," he said, shaking his head. "He's being held without bail, until he's tried."

"You can't be serious," I thought to myself. Things were not looking good. "Okay," I said to the Police Chief, "well, can I at least see the Doctor, then?"

The Chief shook his head. "I'm afraid that's not allowed, either. As an enemy of the state, he has no visitation rights. But, like I said, Donna and Kalvor are a different story." He looked at my purse suspiciously. "How, exactly, do you plan to pay for their bail?"

I pulled out my three reams of paper – I wish I'd had a camera to take a picture of the shock on the Police Chief's face! – and negotiations were made. Fifteen minutes later, I "paid" a full ream of paper for Donna and Kalvor (about one-fourth of it for Donna, and the rest for Kalvor).

"Well, that settles it," the Police Chief said, smiling. "Now, if you'll just wait in the front lobby, I'll send your friends out to you."

I thanked him and left, heading back to the lobby. But then I had an idea. I decided to do a little bit of exploring, to see if I couldn't maybe find the Doctor on my own. (Stranger things have happened, after all – and besides, I wasn't going to just give up on him.)

There weren't any signs saying "Maximum Security This Way" (I suppose that would have been a bit much to ask for), so I snooped somewhat aimlessly for a few minutes. I was hoping that I'd sort of stumble upon something that would guide me in the right direction, somehow.

And, in fact, I did – in a way. I turned one particular corner and walked straight into a big wall of brown. Except that it wasn't actually a wall: it was the Doctor! I fought back a squeal of happiness (and a bit of confusion), settling instead for a huge smile and an even bigger hug.

"Cate!?" he exclaimed (albeit quietly), picking me up a bit. "How did you – what did – but I was coming to break you and Donna out!"

"And I was coming to break _you_ out!" I laughed. "I didn't know how, yet, but, you know… Looks like we both beat each other to it, though."

"But _how?_" the Doctor asked, still looking quite shocked. (Though, I have the funny feeling I looked just the same.)

"I made bail!" I explained. "Or, well, Donna made my bail, but then, I just paid hers, so I guess it cancels out… 'Cause paper's really valuable here, and Donna had a notepad, so I was able to give that to the guard, and then I ran back to the TARDIS to grab more paper…" I shook my head, breaking out of my ramble. "But never mind that – _you_ were the one who should have had a hard time with escaping! You were under maximum security!"

"Yeah, but I'm clever," he said with that smug grin of his. "I made the guard think that I needed to get medication out of my coat pocket – they'd taken my coat from me and put it in some store room, but they brought it back so I could get my 'medicine.' Whilst grabbing a small jar of hard candies that I thankfully had in one of my pockets, I also slipped out my sonic screwdriver!" He looked immensely proud of himself – and I have to say, I couldn't blame him. "Then, a bit of jiggery-pokery later, presto – "

As if on cue, an alarm started to sound. "And that would be them noticing that I've gone, I'd reckon," the Doctor said. "Time to run!"

He took off down the corridor, and I followed him – until I noticed a slight problem. "Doctor, what about Donna? She's waiting in the lobby, and the Police Chief will be expecting me to meet up with her there!"

We paused for a moment. "Well, I'm an escaped prisoner; I can't just walk out the front door…" He ran his hands through his hair. "Alright, you go find Donna like nothing's happened. I'll meet you two back at the TARDIS. If I'm not there in, oh, half an hour from when you get there, assume they caught me again." And with that, he dashed away.

I ran back towards the lobby (passing many a harried-looking officer on the way, as they ran towards the source of the alarms), but paused to collect myself a few feet before the end of the hallway; I wanted to look as nonchalant as possible. Sure enough, Donna and Kalvor were already there, with police escorts and the Chief. He was looking at me very suspiciously.

"Took you a while to get here," he said, eyebrow raised. "You left my office before I did, and then I had to get these two all set for release… You should have been here well before us."

"I know, I'm sorry," I said, putting on my best apologetic look. "I took a wrong turn and got a bit lost."

"There are only two turns to get to my office from the lobby," he said, as if to point out that getting lost would be quite difficult.

"I know," I said, acting sheepish. "It's just, I've really got a horrible sense of direction…"

"She really does," Donna put in, coming to my rescue. "She's a smart girl, don't get me wrong, and we love her, but she couldn't find her way out of a one-way street." She gave me a discreet wink after the Chief had turned back to me.

"Well, fine, then, whatever you say," he said, shaking his head. "You three are free to go – finally. Now, if you'll excuse me, I do have the small matter of this _alarm_ to deal with." He shot me a rather angry look as he left. (I suppose he blamed me for delaying him from dealing with it, since he had to wait for me to get to the lobby before he could leave Donna and Kalvor.)

"Thank you so much, Cate – both of you, really," Kalvor said, once the guards were gone. "You don't know how much this means to me."

"Honestly, it's no trouble at all," I smiled at him. "We're happy to help." I took the two remaining reams of paper out of my purse. "Here," I said, handing them to him, "you can have these, just like we promised."

Kalvor started to protest, but Donna wouldn't let him. "Seriously, _we don't need it_. You and your family deserve this, after all you've been through. So take it, and we _won't _have any arguments."

"Thank you, ladies, so very much," Kalvor said, finally taking the paper. "Your generosity will never be forgotten, I assure you."

"We're honored," I told him.

"I'd love to have you come and meet my family," he continued, "but I have a sneaking feeling that…" He looked around and lowered his voice. "That these alarms have something to do with you."

I grinned conspiratorially. "Sort of, yeah," I whispered. I turned to Donna. "By the way, the real reason I was late was that I ran into the Doctor. He broke out."

Donna's eyes nearly popped out of her head. "He _what!?_"

I shook my head. "I'll explain later; for now, we've got to get back to the TARDIS, and quickly." I looked back at Kalvor. "Good luck, Kalvor, with everything. It was nice meeting you."

"Same to you," he smiled. "On both accounts." He nodded towards the door. "Now, go, before you two run into any more trouble!"

As we turned toward the door, Donna called back, "Oh, Kalvor, running into trouble is all we ever do! Emphasis on the running!"

On the way back to the TARDIS, I told Donna what the Doctor had done. She was impressed – "But don't tell him I said that," she winked. As the TARDIS entered our view, conveniently, so did the Doctor; he was running out of a side street just a few feet ahead of us.

"Wonderful!" he called when he saw us. "Donna, Cate, might I suggest _not _slowing down, because there's a regiment of very unhappy Mancaterran police officers following not too far behind me, and I really think that a hasty getaway is in order!"

Donna and I didn't need telling twice. We sped up our running, and followed the Doctor into the TARDIS at top-speed. Donna closed the door behind us, and mere seconds later, we were in flight.

"Phew," the Doctor breathed. "That was close."

"It's _always _close," Donna said, exasperated. "You are _made_ of 'close,' Doctor."

"Oh, it's not _always_-always close," the Doctor responded. Seeing both Donna and I raise our eyebrows, he added, "Just, you know… pretty often. But that's still not always."

Donna laughed, shaking her head. "Whatever you say, Sunshine, whatever you say." She walked towards the hallway leading to our rooms. "Now, I don't know about either of you, but I feel extremely dusty and dingy after sitting in that jail cell, so I'm going to get changed. Call me if we have any more running for our lives to do, yeah?"

"Don't worry, I'll let you know," I called after her, chuckling. The Doctor just rolled his eyes, smiling.

"So," I said, turning to the Doctor, "that was fun."

"Oh, yeah, loads," he answered. "Always a good time, getting arrested."

"I wouldn't know about that," I smiled. "This was my first time."

"Well, you should obviously try it more often, then."

"Why do I get the funny feeling that, traveling with you, I actually will?" I asked. The Doctor just smiled and winked at me.

"By the way," the Doctor added shortly afterward, "I meant to ask: the TARDIS should have been locked earlier, so how'd you get in to get the paper?"

"Oh! I almost forgot!" I took the spare key out of my pocket. "Spare key, behind the 'Police Public Call Box' sign. I saw it in one of the episodes on TV. I forgot to put it back, though; sorry about that."

I held the key out for him to take back, but the Doctor shook his head. "Nah. Why don't you keep it?" He smiled at me. "I would have given you one eventually, anyway, so you may as well just keep the one you've already got."

"Really?" I asked, excited. The Doctor nodded. "Thank you!" I beamed, putting the key back in my pocket. (Note to self: buy a keychain.)

There was a bit more chatting, then I headed off to my room to get changed (Donna was right – sitting in a jail cell does have a way of making one feel rather yucky). And that was pretty much the day. I'm glad I finally got to see Mancaterra – even if I spent most of the day in a jail cell, and probably can't ever go back. (I'm pretty sure that if the Doctor ever sets foot on that planet again, he will be thrown back in jail faster than he can blink – and I don't think that, even at his cleverest, he'd be able to make it out again.) But, hey, welcome to life with the Doctor. I can't say that I didn't expect it to be insane.

You know, I think Donna has a point. We do seem to spend a heck of a lot of time running into trouble, and only _just _managing to get out of it. You've got to figure, one day, that luck will run out…

But for now, I wouldn't miss a second of it – dangerous or not. And I'm nearly positive that Donna wouldn't, either.


	9. Are You Going to Saffron Fair?, pt1

_A/N: Ok, so I failed in catching up to the show by the time the fourth season ended… But let's just pretend that, being an American, I was going by the US airing schedule; that way, I've still got three weeks! Yay! _

_As always, thanks to everyone for sticking with the story… Enjoy! _

_Disclaimer: I don't own anything in the Whoniverse._

* * *

Entry #15

The TARDIS landed with a jolt as we materialized in yet another unknown location (the Doctor had been in one of his "let's-set-the-TARDIS-to-random!" moods lately). I picked up the pens that had scattered on the floor and placed them back on my desk before heading out to the control room.

I met Donna in the hall on the way, and we walked together into the control room to find a grinning Doctor. "What's got you so happy?" she asked.

"Our latest landing site!" the Doctor answered, gesturing at the TARDIS doors. "Beyond those doors lies the moon Saffron, so called because the sky is the color of saffron flowers. Not only is it beautiful, but the moon is one giant, continuous fair! Games, attractions, music, food… All the good stuff!" He bounced a bit on the balls of his feet. "Supposedly, the fair started on the moon's planet, Celadon; but, because it kept constantly growing, within three years the fair had to relocate to the moon, which it has all to itself."

"Sounds like fun," I said, nodding. Donna nodded in agreement.

"Molto bene!" the Doctor exclaimed brightly. "In that case, ladies, follow me…"

He led the way out of the TARDIS and onto Saffron. The Doctor was right: it _was_ beautiful. The sky was a deep, light purple-blue color (like a sunset, but brighter, since the sun was still in the sky), and the grass and leaves were purplish-pink. We seemed to have landed, conveniently, on the side of some sort of parking lot, and we could hear the lively sounds of the fair coming from somewhere ahead of us.

"You know what's great about this trip, too, is it sounds _harmless_," Donna said as she shut the TARDIS door behind her. "Unless you plan on, I don't know, drowning in the dunking booth or something."

"Personally, I wouldn't recommend going anywhere near a dunking booth to begin with," the Doctor put in. "You just wind up soaked and chilly, with your clothes sticking to you and your hair a mess – and thus, you spend the rest of the day miserable."

Donna raised an eyebrow at him. "Sounds to me like you've had a bad experience with a dunking booth."

"I was _trying_ to humor Sarah Jane!" he cried as we walked towards the sounds of the fair. (The fact that Donna wouldn't know who Sarah Jane is didn't seem to bother him). "It's not my fault she 'forgot' to tell me that she has incredible aim – and a surprisingly strong arm," he sighed. "I never thought she'd actually hit that tiny little target and dunk me. She and Harry didn't let that go for months…"

But I was putting things together. "Harry _and_ Sarah Jane, you said? But that must mean you were…" I burst out laughing, a not-so-flattering image of the Fourth Doctor flashing into my head. "Oh, no, your _hair!_ When it dried, you must have been an absolute puff-ball!"

"As it happens, yes, my hair was a bit puffier than usual, thank you," the Doctor responded grumpily.

"I can't picture you with puffy hair at all," Donna mused. "Spiky, yeah, but puffy…" She grinned smugly. "Don't have a picture of this day by any chance, do you?"

"No," the Doctor snapped, looking embarrassed (and quite like if/when he ever saw Sarah Jane again, she'd be getting an earful). "And hey, look at that," he added quickly, clearly trying to change the subject, "I think I can see the fence designating the boundary of the fairgrounds not too far ahead!" He started zipping away towards the newly-visible fence.

"Oi!" Donna called, as the two of us sped up to follow the Doctor. "Wait for us!"

Before long, we'd reached the fairgrounds. Entrance was free, but some of the various rides, games, attractions, and food were not; luckily, there were futuristic ATMs scattered about, and the Doctor was able to sonic one into giving us what seemed like plenty of cash. (Well, coins, actually – apparently, Celadon and Saffron don't use paper money.)

"So," the Doctor grinned, once the money had been split up amongst the three of us, "where to first?"

We decided, in the end, to just wander around, since none of us had actually been to Saffron before, and thus didn't know what there was to go to. I noticed, in our wandering, that Saffron – or at least the Fair – was very diverse: fair-goers and employees alike were of all different species. Most of them I didn't recognize, but I definitely saw a good number of humans; I also saw some New Earth cat-people, and some of the blue humanoid aliens from the Face of Boe's end-of-the-Earth party. We also passed a lot of interesting food stalls, eventually pausing at one (manned by a very perky cat-man) so the Doctor could treat Donna and me to this cupcake-like dessert that tasted differently with every bite. There were a lot of trinket-selling kiosks, too; Donna tried to stop at one selling hats, but the Doctor wouldn't let her. ("You made me carry that stupid hat box of yours onto the TARDIS, and you haven't worn a single one of those hats yet!" he exclaimed. "Whatever is possessing you to think that you'll wear _this_ one!?")

It was as the Doctor was dragging Donna away from the hats that I noticed the crowd of people a few yards ahead, gathering around an empty stage. A few seconds later, a brightly-dressed human man stepped onto the stage from the tent behind it, bringing much applause from the audience. He waved to the crowd, then bent down to pick something up that I couldn't see (there were heads in the way). He stood back up and started to juggle whatever it was that he had picked up. I shaded my eyes from the sun and squinted to try and see exactly what it was he was juggling, because if I didn't know any better, I would have said it was…

"Oh, my God, it _is!_" I exclaimed suddenly, causing the Doctor and Donna to stop their bickering over the hats and look at me, puzzled. I pointed at the juggler. "That guy over there, the one juggling! He's juggling _geese!_" I laughed. "Oh, wow, some people really _do_ juggle geese!"

Donna just tilted her head at me, and the Doctor said, "Um… I feel that I might have missed the part where that's… been rumored?"

I laughed again. "No, don't worry, it was on a TV show, where I came from."

"There was a TV show about geese jugglers in your dimension?" Donna asked, surprised.

"Oh, no! Not a whole show," I explained, "it was just a casual reference… Some of the characters were talking about something being a strange custom, and one guy said, 'Well, you know, some people juggle geese!'" The Doctor and Donna didn't seem to quite get why it was so funny, but it didn't bother me. "You kind of had to have watched _Firefly_, I guess," I told them. "But can we go watch the juggler? Please? Just for a little while?"

"I don't see any harm in it," the Doctor said. "Might as well, then."

"Don't see any harm in it?" Donna asked as we walked towards the stage. "I'm pretty sure that juggling geese could be considered harmful to the _geese!_" She looked rather upset. "I'm going to have a word with this juggler, I think, when he's done his shtick…"

"Relax, Donna," the Doctor said, meandering through the crowd so we could see more clearly, "I'm sure that they aren't real geese. They're probably mechanical or stuffed or something."

"Oh, no, they're quite real," a woman's even voice said from behind us. We turned around to see a well-dressed, strikingly beautiful woman, maybe in her early thirties. She was also a human, like the juggler, and was smiling pleasantly (although slightly coolly) at us. "My brother and I have trained our geese since their birth," she explained, gesturing to the juggler, "to know exactly how to behave during the juggling routine. I assure you," she said, looking at Donna, "that our geese aren't harmed even one tiny bit. They know exactly what they're doing, as does my brother."

"Oh," Donna responded, thrown for a loop. "Well, then… That's good, I suppose… Sorry I just assumed…"

"I'm just happy to have cleared things up for you," the woman smiled. "If you have any other questions, please, feel free to stop by our tent at any time – we love to have audience members come back to meet us, and our geese, and we'll be happy to tell you whatever you'd like to know." She pulled three business cards out from a pocket on her dress. "These have our location here at the Fair, just in case you forget where we are." She handed Donna and I our cards, then slid the Doctor's, rather flirtatiously, into the pocket on his suit jacket. "I do _very_ much hope you'll decide to stop by again," she said seductively. And then, she slipped back into the crowd.

"Well," the Doctor said, blinking, "that was different. I mean, it started off normally enough, but it ended rather… oddly." He shook his head. "So! Geese juggling!" he suddenly said cheerily, turning to watch the juggler. Donna and I just shrugged at each other (which was quickly becoming a habit for us), and watched the juggling as well.

After the show, the woman from earlier joined her brother on stage for the bows. The juggler, I'd noticed, seemed to be a few years older than his sister (mid-thirties, maybe). It was easy to tell that the two were related: they both had the same pale skin, nearly-black hair, and stone-colored eyes. They also were both gorgeous.

"Thank you all so much for watching," the juggler said in the same amicable but very even tone his sister had used with the Doctor, Donna, and me before. "I'm Darien Archer, and this is my sister, Willow." Willow waved at the crowd as they cheered for her, too. "The Saffron Fair – back when it was still just my sister's and my town's fair – started with this little attraction," he said proudly, "and it's only with support from people like you that we've grown to this size!"

"Oh, so these two are the owners of the whole Fair!" I noted, and the Doctor nodded to say that I was right.

"For those of you who aren't aware," Willow took over, "our tent is always open to our audience members. So, if you have any questions about our show, or the Fair in general, please feel free to stop in. We'll be closed for a few minutes as we organize ourselves after the show, but if you just wait outside the tent, we'll let you in as soon as we're ready."

"Thank you again for watching, and enjoy the rest of the Fair!" Darien finished with a brilliant grin (I hate to admit it, but it might actually have rivaled the Doctor's). Darien and Willow then walked off stage, and slipped through the flap-doors to their tent.

Most people in the crowd turned to go about the rest of their day, but I noticed that a few were following the siblings to the tent. I looked up at the Doctor. "What do you think? Should we take them up on their offer?"

"Sure would make that Willow woman happy," Donna added pointedly, clearly referencing Willow's desire for the Doctor to come by to see her.

But the Doctor shook his head. "Nah, it's going to be really crowded in there if we go now. The tent isn't all that big," he pointed out, gesturing at the Archers' tent. "Might as well wait till it's not right after a show – they did say that their tent is '_always_' open, after all."

"In that case," I said, "anyone object to finding a drink stand? I don't know about you guys, but that cake thing from before made me really thirsty."

This time it was Donna who shook her head. "You know, I think I'm going to take my chances with the Archers' tent, actually," she told us. "It didn't seem like _that_ many people went in, and I really do want to find out how they trained their geese so that they aren't hurt in the routine. Besides," she added with a cheeky smile, "I wouldn't mind getting the chance to talk to that Darien…"

"I don't know, Donna," the Doctor started, "there's just something about the Archer siblings that seems off to me. They're almost too perfect, or something… I'd rather the three of us go together; I don't feel comfortable when somebody just goes wand – "

But Donna interrupted. "I know, I know, 'No wandering off,'" she said rolling her eyes. "I'm a big girl, I can handle myself. At the very least, I can handle a couple of fair-owning geese-jugglers. What are they gonna do, have their geese peck me to death?" She gave a small chuckle. "Honestly, Doctor, they're harmless. I don't think they're 'too perfect.' But I _do _think that you're looking for trouble that doesn't exist, not this time."

"Alright," the Doctor sighed reluctantly, "but seriously, Donna, just don't leave the geese-juggling area. If you're done with your visit before we're done with our drinks, wait by the stage; we'll meet you there."

"I _get_ it, Spaceman," Donna said with mock annoyance (you could tell that, even if she wasn't saying it, she was appreciative of the Doctor's concern). "I promise I'm not going to decide to wander the Fair on my own. So, if that's all, I'll be going now," she said, walking away towards the Archers' tent.

"There's just no stopping her once she gets an idea in her head, is there?" the Doctor asked, shaking his head.

"I'm thinking no, not so much," I responded.

"Terrific." He sighed, then turned to me, brightening again. "Right, you wanted a drink."

There were stands selling drinks scattered throughout the Fair, but since we happened to be near the section of the Fair apparently designated as the food area, we decided we may as well just head there. I really just wanted a bottled water (they're portable, after all), but the Doctor wanted to try this one stand that had, according to its sign, 312 different fruit juices that they would mix for you in any combination that you wanted. I had to admit I was intrigued, so in the end I settled for buying both a bottled water and a fruit drink made of strawberry, peach, apple, raspberry, and mango juices. (I'm not even going to attempt to list what the Doctor had in his – I swear that he had at least twenty-five fruits, most of them I didn't even recognize. All I know is that he definitely asked for bananas, and definitely left out pears.)

Buying our respective refreshments proved to be a… _different _experience, though, and so the Doctor looked extremely perplexed (maybe even a little bothered) as he sat down with me at a nearby table. I, however, was looking at him with a bit of disbelief.

"Is it _really_ that odd for you?" I asked, sipping my fruit juice cocktail. "People being all… flirtatious?"

"Yes," the Doctor answered quickly. "Well, no, but, yes, sort of," he continued, confused. "Not this many people, all in the same day! All in the same _hour_, stranger still…" He ran his fingers through his hair, leaving it pointed in brand-new directions. "First Willow Archer, then not one, but _two _of her employees; the lady selling water and the lady at the fruit juice stand. All three of them made some sort of flirtatious comment; more specifically, all three of them made some sort of flirtatious comment about wanting me to come by again." He ruffled his hair more vigorously this time. "But _why?_ Why all the similar comments?" He sighed, looking off toward the Archers' tent; then, he suddenly looked back at me. "Really, you don't find this just the slightest bit unusual?"

"Ok, the fact that all three women made flirtatious comments about you coming back was admittedly strange; you'd think they'd each have their own little style of flirting, or something, I suppose…" I mused. "But in another way, it kind of makes sense. I think Donna's right; you're reading too much into this. You're so used to trouble popping up that, one time it's something innocent, you're searching for a problem that isn't there."

"Could be, I suppose…" he muttered with a sigh, and I could tell that he didn't believe it. "I just don't get it, though. Why so many similar comments, in the same place, within less than an hour? It's a pattern, and patterns don't just show up for fun."

"Well," I started with a slight roll of my eyes, "I have my theories, but I'm pretty sure you'd construe them all as 'similar comments.' Which, as it happens, is sort of my point."

"Never mind that; if you've got theories, let's hear…" He trailed off, tilting his head at me and squinting his eyes. "Wait, what?"

I was almost glad that, at that very moment, someone down below the food court area decided to yell out, "_What the hell are you doing!?_" sparing me having to explain my quip to the Doctor. I say "almost," though, for two reasons: one, because it's never nice to be happy that someone else might be in trouble, even if it helps you; two, because the Doctor and I looked at each other, wide-eyed, as we recognized the voice of the screamer.

"Donna," the Doctor and I said simultaneously, and we bolted away from our drinks and headed toward the Archers' tent.

* * *

_  
A/N 2: I was watching "Genesis of the Daleks" earlier this week, to see the original Davros… Because of this, I just had__ to let the Fourth Doctor poke his head in here, somehow. Yay for Harry and Sarah Jane, too!_


	10. Zombies, pt2

_Disclaimer: "Whoniverse" in all forms not mine._

_A/N: Bah. This plot line seemed so much cooler in my head than it wound up doing on paper. But then I started it, so I had to finish it… Sorry if it's not one of your favorite chapters. Hey, even the actual show has its so-so moments, right?_

_All the same, thanks for reading and sticking with my fic! It is very much appreciated. _

_Random P.S.: Um. "Journey's End." WOAH. Great ending, I think. Not always happy, but just… well-done._

* * *

Entry #15, cont

The Doctor and I ran as fast as we could, bounding through throngs of people and finally throwing open the door-flaps of the Archers' tent. What we found was enough to make both of us stop dead in the doorway.

There was the expected pen full of geese, of course, with a few geese-care supplies nearby; there was also a small sitting area for the Archer siblings, with some cushy chairs, a table, a cooler and a mirror. But all that took up a surprisingly small, confined area of the tent: most of the room was taken up with a circle of six long tables, surrounding a smaller one in the middle. Darien Archer was standing in front of the small table, so I couldn't see what was on it (though I did see the shining end of some silver object), but on the other, long tables lay six beings of different species. All but one of them were staring at the ceiling with a distant look in their eyes – the one who wasn't, was Donna.

As a matter of fact, Donna was doing anything _but_ staring glassy-eyed at the ceiling. Just like when she was captured in Pompeii, Donna was proving that she was _not _going to go quietly. She was screaming her lungs out at both Archer siblings (Darien in front of her, and Willow behind), and wiggling like crazy in an attempt to break free of the restraints fastening her to the table. It didn't seem to be full-out stopping the Archers from whatever they were planning to do to her, but based on the fact that Willow was trying to hold Donna down (in addition to the restraints attached to the table), it was, at the very least, bothersome enough to delay them.

The arrival of the Doctor and me, though, delayed them further, as they had to stop to greet us. Darien smiled, just as dazzlingly as he had at the end of the juggling routine; however, this time, I noticed a hint of malevolent cunning in that grin that I hadn't seen before. Willow turned to face us, as well, and her smile showed a frostiness that had been well-hidden earlier in the day, too.

"Ah," Willow breathed cheerily, "I was _so_ hoping you'd pay us a visit! See, Darien, I told you he would."

"Doctor? Cate?" Donna called from the table. "Is that you?" Because of the way she was strapped down, she couldn't completely turn her head to see us.

"It is," the Doctor answered. "You alright there?"

"Oh, I'm just _ducky_," Donna said sarcastically. "Do I _look _alright to you!? I'm about to be turned into a zombie!"

"Fair point." The Doctor pulled out the sonic screwdriver and pointed it at the restraints.

The restraints unlocked, and Donna hopped off of the table, heading straight to where the Doctor and I were standing (still right inside the doorway to the tent). "Thanks for that," she said, "though you were cutting it a bit close on the daring rescue there, Superman!" Her words might have sounded harsh, but the look on her face and her tone of voice showed how appreciative she really was.

"Doctor, did she say?" Darien broke in, looking at the Doctor. "And Cate?" He fixed his eyes on me next. "Good, good, we do always like to know everyone's names."

"That's right," the Doctor replied, "I'm the Doctor. And, looking around this tent, I'm thinking that you aren't going to be so happy about that in the near future." The Doctor glared his coldest glare at the Archers, but their freakishly pleasant smiles never faltered. (Then again, neither did the Doctor's glare.) "So, care to explain what's going on? How about starting with, why does my friend here think that she was about to be turned into a zombie?"

I poked the Doctor in the arm gently. "Um, Doctor, probably because of the five other people on the tables who look to be in a rather zombie-like state."

The Doctor blinked at me. "Well, yes, I'd noticed, but, I meant… Never mind; rephrasing the question, then, let's start with, why are these five people in a rather zombie-like state?"

"Simple enough," Darien answered. "We need them for the Fair."

"Right," the Doctor said, not quite buying it. "Thing is, though, I haven't seen any zombies walking around. I also haven't seen any attractions promising zombies."

"Of course you haven't," Willow said with a lightness usually reserved (by normal people) for flowers and sunshine, not zombies. "We certainly couldn't leave them like this – what use would they be, then? Besides," she continued, her face softening into a look of pity, "we would _never_ advertise our help as 'zombies.' That's such a insensitive term. We prefer to think of them as, 'rejuvenated beings.'"

"You could call them the Choir of Heavenly Angels for all the difference it'd make!" the Doctor snapped. "Semantics won't change what they are! And from what I'm seeing, what they are, is _zombies_ – whether you like that term or not."

"But the point still stands that they won't remain this way," Darien said, almost soothingly – like a good businessman trying to comfort an unhappy customer. "You've walked in on our first phase; after the second phase, they'll be functioning so well that you'd never even guess that they're dead." He smiled proudly. "In fact, in all the time you've been here today, you hadn't even noticed them."

"Oh, believe me, I noticed," Donna told him angrily. "I saw you run them through with that knife thing; I heard them scream before they fell to the ground. There was no doubt in my mind that these people were dead."

"You _killed _them!?" the Doctor exclaimed, staring at the Archer siblings in shock and fury. "You two, you actually _murdered_ these people yourselves?"

"Well, they didn't just die on their own," Darien said, matter-of-factly. "How strange would that be, all these people just up and dying of natural causes, all at the exact same time?"

"You're right; that probably would never happen, so hey, let's kill them ourselves!" I mocked angrily. "What for!? Why kill all of these innocent people? What could you possibly need them for that they had to be _dead!?_"

I had directed my question at the Archers, but it was the Doctor who answered me. "The Fair," he said. "They need them for the Fair. The Fair that has been steadily growing at a ridiculous pace for years now, always gaining new attractions and vendors and needing more room…" He looked around the tent, his eyes eventually landing on Darien and Willow. "And this is how, isn't it? You had a tiny little local fair back on Celadon, but no, that wasn't good enough. You wanted to be bigger, but you couldn't convince enough people to work for you. So you kill them instead, make them into zombies, and _force_ them to work at your Fair; selling food and crafts, or operating rides, or performing in shows. That's why you said we hadn't noticed all day – because all day we'd been speaking to these creations of yours, and hadn't even realized there was anything unusual about them."

"Except that, you did, Doctor," I pointed out. "Remember? After the two ladies at the drink stands flirted with you, just like Willow had. You thought it was strange that they all had said similar things, but I told you it was probably… your… imagination." I finished my statement a bit sheepishly. "You were right, by the way," I put in apologetically.

"Yes, thanks for that; glad you noticed," the Doctor replied, sounding vindicated and frustrated simultaneously.

"That is an unfortunate side effect," Willow said with a sigh. "Darien does the killing, but I do the rejuvenating. All of the revived beings end up with a bit of my personality in them; they sometimes have a tendency to imitate things that I do or say, without realizing that they're imitating me."

"So how exactly does this whole process work, then?" the Doctor asked coldly. "Donna said you stab them to death – that's a nice, friendly way to go, isn't it? – but then what? How does one go about bringing the dead back to life?"

"With those," I answered – much to the Doctor's surprise. He hadn't expected me to be the one to answer him; really,_ I_ hadn't expected to be the one to answer him, either, but Darien had shifted position and left me with a clear view of the center table. I now knew exactly what that sliver of silver was that I had seen before – and I was starting to put together what the Archers were doing.

Donna examined the pair of objects lying on the table (from her relative safe position by the tent doors, that is). "Those… are metal gloves," she said, clearly puzzled.

"Those are Resurrection Gauntlets," I corrected her. "At least, that's what Torchwood calls them. They've got a pair; that's how they brought Owen back."

"Resurrection Gauntlet," Willow cut in, repeating what I'd said. "I like that better than our name! Don't you, Darien?"

"Oh, definitely," he said to her. "Much more powerful sounding than 'Reviving Gloves,' I think."

"But what are they _for?_" Donna asked, throwing an extremely creeped-out look at the Gauntlets.

"To bring the dead back to life," I found myself explaining. "You touch a dead person's head with that, and presto, they come back to life."

"Not a bad overview," Darien complimented me, "although it was very basic. Allow me to explain…" The proud smile appeared on his face again as he began. "You put on the Gloves – or Gauntlets, if you prefer – and then touch the head of a corpse. I can't give away all of our secrets as to how we actually got the reviving process to work, but I _can_ tell you that it essentially restarts the brain. The lovely electrical signals that keep the brain of a living, breathing being going, start up again in the corpse – but that's all. No heartbeat, no breath – and, when both Gauntlets are used together, no free will. The rejuvenated beings do our bidding." (Well, that explained why no one Torchwood had ever "rejuvenated" – Owen included – were glassy-eyed zombies when revived: Torchwood had only ever used one glove at a time.) "It's a nearly flawless process, if I may be allowed to toot our own horn, as they say – the only small problem is the transfer of some of Willow's mannerisms."

"But I dare say they could inherit worse," Willow added in with more than a small hint of narcissism.

"Yeah, because they could do _so_ much worse than the personality of a killer," Donna shot back with icy sarcasm.

"Wait, do I understand correctly that you two created the Resurrection Gauntlets?" I asked. Darien had said that he didn't want to "toot his own horn," after all…

"Oh yes," Willow answered. "We created the Gloves all on our own – quite the achievement, really." Her proud smile suddenly slipped into a much more calculating one. "However, that's not all that we created…"

"You know," Darien took over, "I must say that I'm quite surprised. None of you have asked yet why Willow and I are sharing our information with you. You can't think that this is the sort of thing that we'd tell just anybody."

"No, of course not," the Doctor replied, "it's just that I don't need to ask. Clearly, you're planning on killing the three of us with that knife that you have hidden behind your back."

Surprise flashed across Darien's ever-steady face for just a second, but then the perfect mask of calm returned. "Well, you are good, Doctor," he said, moving his hands from behind his back to in front of him. Sure enough, there was a knife in them. Except that…

"That's the Life Knife!" I exclaimed.

"Ooh, I like that, too!" Darien smiled. "That even _rhymes!_"

"Yeah, well, thank Ianto Jones," I said, not caring that the Archers (and even Donna, really) didn't know who that was. I turned to the Doctor and Donna, speaking quickly and quietly. "It's made of the same material as the gloves. If someone's been killed with the Life Knife, you get a better result from the Resurrection Gauntlet than when you try to revive someone killed with something else."

"So, in other words, it's Really Bad News for us," Donna suggested equally softly, looking somewhat worried.

I started to nod at her, but the Doctor shook his head. "Course not," he assured us, speaking (unlike Donna and me) loudly enough for the Archers to hear. "Because this," he said, gesturing around the tent, "_ends_. Now." Then, to my surprise – and probably to everyone else's, as well – the Doctor smiled. "You see, the thing is, if I were you, if I was going to kill someone by backing them against a wall…" He shook his head, tutting. "Between you and me, a little word of advice: make sure that they've moved away from the door!" He grabbed Donna's and my hands, and pulled us through the flap of the tent.

"I can't believe that I actually had to give that speech again!" he said once we were outside, sounding incredulous. (I realized then why what he'd just said had sounded familiar – he'd given similar advice to the Slitheen in Downing Street!) "Honestly, how thick can these people be, cornering people against – "

But the Doctor stopped his rant suddenly, when the three of us noticed the veritable army of Fair employees heading straight for us, all looking very angry; murderous, almost. After all, all (or at least many) of the Fair employees were these "rejuvenated beings," and thus would do the Archers' bidding – which right about now, was probably preventing the three of us from getting away with the Archers' secrets.

"… Exits," the Doctor finished, flatly. "Oh, that's just not fair."

"Doctor, shouldn't we be running?" Donna asked frantically.

The Doctor shook his head. "Where to? They're coming at us in a circle."

"Well, we've got to do _something_, because they're coming closer!" I said, grabbing the Doctor's arm with one hand and pointing at the Fair employees with the other.

Just as the employees were completely closing the distance between us and them, Willow's voice called from the door-flaps to the tent. "Stop!"

The employees in front of us halted instantly, standing to attention. Willow nodded at them, then turned her gaze to the Doctor, Donna, and I. "You're surrounded, you know," she said, matter-of-factly.

"Hadn't noticed," the Doctor quipped.

"But we're offering you a choice," Willow continued, unfazed. "If you come back to the tent and let Darien kill you, we promise that it will be quick and practically painless. Plus, you'll be able to 'live' forever, as an employee of our Fair. We'll even make sure to keep the three of you together here. Or…" She shook her head, gesturing at the employees. "If you continue to try to escape, we will let our employees tear you apart. That will be neither quick nor painless. And mutilating _you_," she added, looking pointedly at the Doctor, "would be a very unfortunate loss indeed."

"You cannot _seriously_ be flirting with him at a time like this," Donna said in complete disbelief. "You just can't."

The Doctor cut in before Willow could respond. "Personally, I don't like either option very much," he told her. "I prefer to live – and I mean _really_ live, not spend the rest of my life as your undead slave."

"We can't just let you leave," Willow said calmly, "not when you know about our Fair."

"Well, then, maybe you shouldn't have told us," the Doctor responded, equally calm. "Or, better yet, maybe you should never have started this whole process in the first place, and just have been happy with what you had, back on Celadon. Now _that_ would have saved you a whole bunch of trouble."

"What trouble?" Willow asked, sounding annoyed for the first time. "You three are the first difficulty we've encountered – and as you will be out of our hair in just a few moments, you are barely worthy of being called 'trouble.' It's not even as if word of this will get out – the employees not ringing you in right now are occupied with keeping other Fair-goers from coming over here and seeing what's going on."

"That's where you're wrong, Willow," the Doctor said. "In just a few moments, something's going to happen, alright – but it won't be our deaths. It will be your and your brother's arrests."

"Impossible," Willow scoffed. "The police officers here at the Fair are our rejuvenated beings, as well."

"Of course they are," the Doctor nodded. "But the ones from Celadon aren't."

"Neither are the police from Celadon _here,_" Willow exclaimed, definitely starting to lose her cool now.

"She's got a point, there," I said. I didn't really want to admit it, but it was true.

"Oh, really?" the Doctor asked, grinning. "Then, who's that over there, breaking through the lines of employees?"

Donna, Willow, and I all turned to face the direction the Doctor was pointing. He was right – there _were _figures bounding through the unmoving employees! It wasn't long before we could hear them shouting over megaphones that they were, in fact, the Celadon police, and that the Archer siblings were to present themselves with their hands up.

"But… how…" Willow spluttered in shock, all vestiges of her constant cool calm gone.

The Doctor produced a brown object from his pocket. "Psychic paper!" he said brightly. "Usually just used as a form of I.D. that makes you out to be whoever you need to be – but sometimes, when someone else has psychic paper, too, it can be used to send short messages. _Psychically_," he finished with a bounce, "and thus, silently. While we were discussing how my friends and I should die, I was sending the Celadon police a friendly little message."

The Celadon police were just feet away by that point, so the Doctor turned to Donna and me, and said, "And now that they're here, looks like it's time for us to go."

"Go?" Donna asked. "But, shouldn't we stay to make sure that the Archers are taken care of?"

The Doctor shook his head. "Nah, they've got it under control. Besides, if we stay much longer, everyone's going to be asking us for interviews, what with us being the ones who got the Archers caught. And that just winds up being a terrible mess, no fun at all… So let's head out before that happens, shall we?"

As we slipped away around the back of the tent, we could hear the Celadon police clicking handcuffs over the Archer siblings. I was glad that they would see justice, obviously, but I couldn't help but wonder what would happen to the people they had already turned into "rejuvenated beings."

"I have no idea, to be honest," the Doctor replied to my musings. "I mean, if they had their own free will, it's possible that they could just go on to live in regular society…" the Doctor sighed. "But in the states they're in, who knows?"

"Do you think they'll be killed?" Donna asked softly, looking back at the ring of Fair employees around the tent. "As a mercy killing, I mean, if there's nothing else that can be done for them."

"I don't see how they would," the Doctor said. "They're already dead, so they can't die again…"

"Like Owen," I added, sadly.

The Doctor nodded with sympathy. "Like Owen. Except, at least, Owen isn't anyone's zombie-slave."

"True," I responded, brightening a little. "I guess it could be worse for him, then."

The three of us walked the rest of the way back to the TARDIS in silence, mulling over what we had seen. It's really amazing the lengths people will go to, just to get what they want – but then again, a part of me isn't entirely surprised by it. I'm more surprised that I just met the creators of the Life Knife and the Resurrection Gauntlets – I never thought _that_ would happen. I wonder if the ones that Torchwood has are the same ones as the ones I was dealing with today, or if there are more of them out there. Either way, I wonder how they got to Cardiff. Fell through the Rift, probably, but still… how strange. It was just a strange day all around… So much for our nice, relaxing trip to a fair! Maybe the next place we land will get to be a quiet vacation… I guess we'll just have to wait and see!


	11. Losses

_Disclaimer: Still not mine._

_A/N: This is another one of those chapters that goes along with events of the fourth series; so, the first bit is basically a recap of "The Sontaran Strategem"/"The Poison Sky" and "The Doctor's Daughter." That means two things: One, clearly there are spoilers for those episodes; two, sorry for telling you things you already know, but due to the diary format, I kind of have to (I tried to keep it as short and succinct as possible). Also, there are MAJOR spoilers for the finale of the second series of "Torchwood."_

_As always, thanks to everyone who's reading, and extra thanks to those who review. Enjoy the chapter!_

* * *

Entry #18

Don't you just love it when everything happens at once? Especially when "everything" tends to include a "ridiculous amount of running" and life-threatening experiences, as it usually does with the Doctor.

It all started with Martha – yeah, Martha Jones! (who was _so cool_, by the way) – calling the Doctor down to Earth to help U.N.I.T. investigate some strange goings-on. Turned out that the Sontarans had been using a young genius, Luke Rattigan, and his ATMOS system (no, sorry, just ATMOS; the "S" at the end already stands for "system," so Luke got tetchy when you said "ATMOS system") to invade the Earth. Much insanity ensued – including a clone of Martha made by the Sontarans to infiltrate U.N.I.T. (and mess with the Doctor's plans), and the Doctor almost blowing up the Sontaran ship with him still on it (that was a nerve-wracking moment, to say the very least). In the end, though, it was Luke who sacrificed himself to save the planet. He had been our enemy at first, but came over to our side when he saw what the Sontarans were really planning. He was a good person, deep down, I think, and even though I'd only known him for a few hours, I was sad to see him go. Luke could have done so much with his life… Then again, I suppose he already did: he saved the world.

Once the world had once again been set right, the Doctor invited Martha back on to the TARDIS to travel with us. She politely declined (she had a fiancé to go home to – Tom Milligan! – not to mention her job at U.N.I.T.), but she couldn't _quite_ turn down at least walking inside again. But as we stood around the console talking, all of a sudden, the TARDIS just took off! Poor Martha was rather upset, but the Doctor hadn't made it happen, and there was nothing that could be done to stop it. So, Martha Jones was off on another adventure with the Doctor – and Donna and me.

We wound up on a planet called Messaline, where the Doctor sort of… wound up with a daughter. Really. They took a tissue sample from his hand, put it in this machine, and, well, created a daughter, somehow; a late-teenaged (twenty at oldest), fully functioning, two-hearted daughter. Donna took to calling her "Jenny" (for "_gen_erated anomaly"), and the name stuck. At first, the Doctor did _not_ like the idea of having a daughter; he said that he had lost all of that a long time ago, and didn't think he could ever get it back. As the day went on, though, he definitely started to change his mind.

And who could blame him? She was great! She was _so_ much like him – smart, funny, kind, a bit hyperactive… She and I got along really well, actually. She was a _lot_ of fun, and it was nice to have someone around who was my own age, for a change. I was really looking forward to having her with us on the TARDIS… But unfortunately, that didn't happen – because just as the Doctor was handed a new family, it was taken away from him. Again.

There was this war happening on Messaline, and it wound up culminating with both sides facing off in this garden, with the Doctor, Donna, Martha, Jenny, and me in the middle. It seemed as if the two sides were about to come to terms, but apparently, the war was too ingrained in the mind of old General Cobb, who made to shoot the Doctor (presumably to get him to shut up with his peace talks). But Jenny saw this, and stepped in front of her father at the last second.

I've seen people die before (between working for Torchwood and traveling with the Doctor), but watching Jenny die was the harder than all the others combined. Not just because she was someone I had become friends with, but also because of the Doctor's reaction. She died in his arms, and I've never before in my life seen anyone look as heartbroken as the Doctor did then. The _Doctor_ – who's always so strong and brave in the face of anything – truly looked like he might just fall apart. And there was nothing – …

… I'm sorry. I broke off there because my phone rang; it said Jack was calling, and since we hadn't talked since he called me from Gwen and Rhys's wedding (I'd made him promise me he'd call, so I could congratulate the newlyweds on their actual day), I really wanted to take the call. I was hoping his call would be a nice break from all of the death and destruction of today…

"Hey, Jack!" I said cheerily, answering the phone. "Nice to hear from you again!"

"Hi, Cate," he responded, sounding… tired. I was immediately worried, though I didn't know why yet. "I just wish it was going to be a nice phone call."

Then, I was _definitely _worried. "What do you mean? Jack? What's going on?"

He took a deep breath. "Tosh and Owen are dead." I tried to respond, but since I couldn't get anything out (I was too shocked), Jack just continued. "You remember we told you about Captain John? Well, he came back, and it turns out he was in league with my brother, Gray…" He explained all about the battle that ensued; how he wound up buried underneath Cardiff for millennia, how even Rhys and P.C. Andy helped in the fight, how the Torchwood team got split up… And finally, how Tosh and Owen met their ends (Owen, for the second time).

"Tosh was in the Hub, helping Owen through the nuclear reactor," Jack said, his voice almost breaking. "Gray had gotten in somehow… He shot her." Another deep breath. "From what we can tell, she kept fighting, and tried so hard to get Owen through safely… But she just couldn't override the system. The radiation levels got too high, and Owen was still there, trapped in the room…" He sighed. "Not long after that, Ianto, Gwen, and I found Tosh dying in the med station, but she didn't have much left in her. She was gone in just a couple of minutes."

"Oh, my God," was all I could say. "But… How… Why…" I tried to gather my thoughts into coherent sentences. "They're really gone, Jack? You're not going to give me a call back in fifteen minutes, telling me they're okay? Like last time?"

"No," Jack said, with broken chuckle. "Not this time. Sometimes, even Torchwood is proven to be mortal."

At first, I nodded, but then I realized Jack couldn't see me through the phone. "Guess so," I choked out. I took a steadying breath of my own, then asked, "How are you three holding up?"

"As well as we can," Jack told me truthfully. "It's hard, but… We _have_ to continue. That's the hard truth of this life, isn't it? We can never stop. If we stop, so does the world." He gave another sad chuckle. After a small pause, he added, "What about you? You going to be alright?"

"Yeah," I said, mostly-honestly. "Like you said, we have to be."

"Good," Jack said, with an attempt at cheer. "Still, if you ever need us… Just give us a call. Any of us. We're in this together."

"I know," I told him. "Feel free to give me a call, too, if… you know…" I trailed off. He told he that he would. I told him to give Gwen and Ianto a hug for me, then we said our goodbyes. I hung up my phone, leaned over from my seat on my bed to place the phone back on my desk, then made the mistake of glancing at the photo of the Torchwood crew that had been taken when I left with the Doctor.

And that's when I finally cried. I held onto the smiley-faced pillow that Tosh had given me as a goodbye present, pulled the throw blanket from Owen over me, and sat on my bed and cried. I'm usually a relatively strong person, but I guess there's only so many people – so many _friends_ – that a person can lose, all in one day, before breaking down. Four was apparently my limit.

I don't know how long I'd been sitting like that for (though probably just a couple of minutes), when I heard a knock on my door. I only barely registered it at first, and didn't bother responding, even though a voice, calling my name, was accompanying the knock – it was like the knock was just in a dream. And I'd only _just_ realized that the person who'd been on the other side of the door, had since opened the door and made their way _inside_ my room, when I felt someone sit down next to me and put an arm around me.

I looked up, and saw the Doctor's sympathetic face. "I'd ask if you were alright," he said, once I was looking at him, "but that seems to be a silly question."

I forced myself to stop crying. "No, really, I'm okay," I lied. Well, attempted to lie – I don't know if the lie counts when the other person doesn't believe you for half a second, and judging by the look on the Doctor's face, that was exactly how he felt. "Okay, I'm not really okay," I admitted, half-laughing, half-crying.

The Doctor gave my shoulders a little squeeze. "No, I didn't think so."

"I'm sorry," I said. "You've got enough going on to make you miserable, without having to comfort me…"

"Oi," he broke in – firmly, but not harshly – pulling away from me so he could look me in the eye. "I've got three very good reasons why that's very bad logic, you know. One: Nearly every sentient race in the universe has a saying similar to, 'Misery loves company.' Two: Clearly, you have enough going on to make _you_ miserable, as well, so why should you have to add worrying about making _me_ miserable to your list? And C – no, sorry, three, right? Yes, three: I don't '_have_' to do anything. You always have a choice – how many times did I say that today? Thus, I _chose_ to come in here when I walked by your door and heard you sounding less-than-chipper." He smiled at me. "If I didn't want to be here, I wouldn't be, but I am, so I must want to be. Get it?"

I nodded at him. "Thanks, Doctor."

"So, since we've discerned that you're not alright," he continued, "what seems to be the trouble? I mean, I have my guesses… But if you wanted to… I don't know, I suppose it's… it's supposed to be helpful, isn't it, if you… if you talk about it…"

He trailed off, looking confused and almost awkward. If I hadn't still been crying slightly, I might have chuckled. The Doctor, so it seemed, was trying to be comforting, but was tripping over the more "domestic" bits. A hug was fine, but the talking was taking him out of his comfort zone. (Of course, that just made me appreciate his effort even more.)

"Your guesses are probably right," I told him, rescuing him from having to explain himself further, "but there's more to it than what we all went through." I took a deep breath. "I just got a call from Jack. That's what set me off. He said… He told me that Tosh and Owen died." I quickly summarized what Jack had told me over the phone, trying very hard not to cry again.

Sympathy – and empathy – flashed through his eyes as he shook his head. "I'm so sorry," he said once I'd finished, hugging me again.

"Thanks," I answered. "Me too."

He let go of me, and (just like I had done earlier) glanced over at the photos that had been taken on my last night in Cardiff. "I could take you back there, for a while, if you wanted," he said. "Cardiff, I mean. I'm sure there'll be funerals, or something…"

"There are no funerals," I told him sadly. "Not for Torchwood. There's too much to cover up, so it's easier to have the person… just stop existing. The body stays in Torchwood's morgue, and then, that's it."

The Doctor looked back over at me. "But what about their friends and family? Don't they have a right to know what happened?"

"Immediate family is notified of the death," I explained, "but the cause of death given is a lie. Torchwood informs them that there can be no funeral for whatever reason they come up with, and that's that. As for friends…" I shook my head. "Torchwood doesn't worry about the friends too much; they just leave it up to the family to tell any friends the same story that was given to them."

"How very compassionate of them," the Doctor sighed, clearly not too impressed with Torchwood's public relations.

Even though I essentially agree with the Doctor (Torchwood's policies _are_ rather cold), I couldn't bring myself to say anything against the team at that moment, in any capacity. Besides, having seen things from the inside, I sort of understood the motivation. "They're supposed to be a very secretive organization; they don't really have much of a choice," I defended them.

"Yeah, but like I've been saying," the Doctor responded, "there's _always _a choice." Then he sighed. "But that's neither here nor there, not right now. What is, is, whether or not you want me to bring you back to Cardiff?"

I thought about it for a moment. "Not right now," I finally decided. "I think Jack, Gwen, and Ianto should have their time to come to terms with this, before other people start pouring in."

"You're a part of the team, too, you know," the Doctor pointed out.

"I know, it's just…" I shrugged. "They were the team first. I'd feel out of place, even if they wouldn't feel the same. But that's now… I don't know, maybe later on… I'd probably like to go then, just… not right now."

The Doctor nodded. "Alright, then. I understand. Just, you know, let me know if you want to go… 'Cause we can; I don't mind." He'd been sort of staring past me, but suddenly he looked right at me. "Really. I don't. I know what it's like, losing people you care about. It's a hard life, this."

"Yeah," I agreed, with a half-laugh. "But it's…" I trailed off. I was going to say that it was "fantastic," or "brilliant," or some other word that basically meant, "great," but then I thought of something even better (though I can't claim credit for it). "It's worth it," I told him. "Some things are worth getting your heart broken for."

The Doctor smiled at me and nodded. Then he asked, "Are you going to be alright?"

"I am," I answered. "Maybe not right now, but… I will be. It's what Tosh and Owen would want, anyway, isn't it?"

"Of course," the Doctor smiled, getting up from his seat next to me. "I'll see you later, then. It's been _quite_ the day – you should get some rest."

I yawned, as if on cue. "No arguments from me, I guess," I commented. He started walking towards the door, but I stopped him just before he stepped through. "Doctor?" I called, and he turned back to face me. "What about you? Will _you_ be okay?"

He gave me that slightly-smug, slightly-defiant look he does so well. "Me? I'm always okay."

"Right," I sighed. He was lying and I knew it, and I'm pretty sure he knew that I knew it. "Regardless, I realized, I never really said…" I took a steadying breath. "I'm sorry. About Jenny. Not that that even covers it, but…"

He leaned against the door frame for a moment, staring down the hallway. Then he shifted his gaze to me and nodded. "Thanks," he said. "Me too." His response echoed mine from earlier – both in words and steadiness (or lack thereof) of voice. No, he definitely wasn't okay, and the look on his face said that he definitely knew that I knew it; but, neither of us bothered commenting on it. I guess the unspoken understanding was enough.

"Goodnight, Cate," he finally said, and after I wished him the same, he left, shutting the door to my room behind him.

I feel like I should finish writing about the other events of the day – what happened after we lost Jenny and everything. But the Doctor was right: it's been a _long _day (literally, I think; this had to have been one of those "days" that consisted of more than 24 hours). I'll catch up on the rest after I _get_ some rest, which is much-needed right now. Tomorrow, as always, is another day – no matter what might have happened the day before.


	12. Gifts and Quite Possibly Curses

_Disclaimer: I don't own the Whoniverse._

_A/N: If you've read my "Torchwood" fic, this will sound familiar to you…_

_**THIS AUTHOR'S NOTE CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE SERIES FINALE!! **__ The chapter itself is completely spoiler-free, but if you haven't seen "Journey's End" yet, stop reading this Author's Note and proceed straight to the chapter below._

_That should be fair warning…_

_So, after watching "Journey's End," I really wanted to write a Donna-tribute chapter, like I had for Tosh and Owen after watching "Exit Wounds." At first, I'd planned on having it be an adventure-chapter, with Donna getting to be kick-butt like she so obviously is… But then, I realized two things: one was that I was having trouble coming up with an adventure where she could really shine, and the other was that, after her amazingness in "Journey's End," I don't think that anything I could have eventually come up with would do her justice, anyway. (I mean, really: "And, spin! … And, the other way!" Can't beat that.) So, I decided to make it a funny chapter, with Donna getting to show off her comical side, which is another part of what made – nah, makes – Donna so awesome. It also takes a look at her relationship with the Doctor, a bit. So, hopefully, that's a fair trade-off. Either way, this is my farewell-to-Donna chapter – she'll be very much missed._

_Also of note, seriously, there are Chia pet alarm clocks! My cousins and I were poking around YouTube yesterday and stumbled across an ad for one. And they are slightly creepy._

_Also also of note, this is the second-to-last chapter! Well, sort of – it's the second-to-last chapter before I take a break at least, mainly because I'm heading off to Britain myself for a couple of weeks! However, I'll probably continue this afterwards, because a) it's fun and b) I still have some story ideas floating around… (I also really love that this fic, like my Torchwood story, will have 13 chapters, like a season has 13 episodes. I didn't plan that, either time; it just worked out that way!)_

_Anyway, enjoy the chapter! _

* * *

Entry #22

I was walking from my room to the kitchen this afternoon, to get a drink, when I noticed Donna standing in the Doctor's room, puzzling over some strange little object in her hands. Normally, this wouldn't be too unusual, except that the Doctor was currently taking one of his rare naps – so why Donna was in his room, too, was slightly peculiar.

So I walked towards the Doctor's room instead of the kitchen, to investigate. As I poked my head in the door, I realized what it was that Donna was holding. And I was _very _confused.

"Donna," I whispered from the doorway, so as to avoid waking up the Doctor. She looked over at me, and I asked, "What is that and why is that?"

"What?" she whispered back. "Oh, this?" she said, holding up the thing in her hands. She walked over to me so I could see the thing better. "It's an alarm clock."

"Shaped like a Chia pet?" I tried to get my extreme bemusement across, even while speaking quietly. Turns out that's pretty hard to do, but I think I managed.

"Yup," Donna responded, smiling.

I blinked. "Why?"

"I dunno, to be honest," she shrugged. "Apparently, they're giving them out with Chia pets, now."

"They still _make_ Chia pets?" I hadn't heard about those in _years_; not since I was maybe ten or eleven.

Donna nodded. "Yeah, I was surprised, too, but I guess that they do. My Gramps bought one, and he said it came with this, but he didn't need it, since he's already got an alarm clock. So he gave it to me, figuring that I probably didn't have an alarm clock on the TARDIS."

"Oh," was all I could think of to say. "Well, it's… Cute?" It was, kind of, actually – it was shaped like a little Chia puppy.

"Yeah, it is," Donna said, looking at it. "Shame it's not working, though."

"Well, time doesn't really move in the Vortex, so…" I shrugged. "It'd probably work fine if we were on a planet somewhere, just not here."

Realization dawned on Donna's face. "That's true, isn't it? You know, I completely forgot about that. I was so determined with my little scheme that I didn't even think about the fact that time doesn't move!"

I raised an eyebrow at her. "Scheme?" When she just grinned at me, I started to put two and two together. "Donna… Why _are_ you standing in here, with a sleeping Doctor and an alarm clock?"

Her grin widened. "Well, he _did _ask us to wake him up after a few hours, if he didn't get up himself…"

"I somehow think that a Chia alarm wasn't exactly what he had in mind," I said, trying not to laugh. "You know, he was probably thinking, someone comes in and taps him on the shoulder; not… whatever that thing does." I stared at the alarm clock. "What _does_ it do, anyway, to wake people up?"

Donna fought back a giggle. "You remember the Chia theme tune?"

I put a hand over my mouth. "Oh, no, it _doesn't!_" Donna nodded at me. "It plays that, 'Ch-ch-ch-chia' song!?" I couldn't believe it, but just Donna nodded again, with yet more enthusiasm. "That is just _cruel_, Donna Noble."

"Yeah, but admit it, it's kind of funny," she smirked.

Well… I had to agree. "Ok, fine," I said, "but I'm _not _going to be around when you eventually put your plan into action. This is all you."

Donna feigned being hurt. "Oh, thanks, Cate, just wash your hands of me, why don't you?"

"You want to wake the Doctor up with a Chia alarm – you want to wake _anyone_ up with a Chia alarm – I want nothing to do with it. I'll stop him from murdering you, I promise, but I don't want to be running for _my _life, too!"

"Well, I suppose one of us has to be free to do the rescuing," Donna admitted, stifling another laugh. Then she sighed. "But I guess my brilliant plan will have to wait till we land somewhere, anyway." She looked down at her Chia alarm, then started to smirk again. "Unless…"

"Oh, no," I said. "Whatever you're thinking, it's a bad idea. That look on your face, it's _definitely_ a bad idea."

"That depends on who you are," she said in the most sing-songy whisper I've ever heard. "I happen to think it's not just good, but great!" She pointed to the back of the Chia alarm. "Because, see, there's this little test button right there… And if I were to press that little test button…"

I scurried around the doorframe, back to the relative safety of the hallway, just as Donna pressed the test button. That alarm has got to be the _most _annoying thing that I have _ever_ heard in my life! Because it's not just the simple tune from the commercials, oh no – they've made it all tropical-sounding, and _loud!_ I felt very, very bad for the Doctor. (Though I had a funny feeling that in a few seconds, I was going to feel worse for Donna, facing the wrath of the scarily-awoken Doctor.)

The Chia alarm barely got through the first "Ch-ch-ch-chia!" when there was a loud thud. I poked my head back into the doorway, and noticed that the Doctor was no longer lying his bed, but now was lying on the ground next to it. Well, not really lying, more like… crumpled up in a pile.

He turned himself around, so that he was sitting on the floor beside his bed. He looked relatively displeased, but more confused than anything.

Donna put on her most charming smile, while I tried not to grimace too obviously. "Doctor?" I asked tentatively, from my position in the doorway. "You okay?"

He looked up at me. "Oh, I'm wonderful, thanks. I'm just down here to admire the carpet." (It should be noted that his response was made even more sarcastic due to the fact that he doesn't have a carpet.) He looked up at Donna next, who was obviously the guilty party – not only did her far-too-charming smile give her away, but she was still holding the Chia alarm. "Can I ask, Donna, _what_, in Rassilon's name, _is that thing!?_ And, while we're at it, what's it doing on the TARDIS!?"

"It's a Chia alarm," she answered matter-of-factly.

"Right… As in, Chia pets?" the Doctor asked. Donna nodded, and the Doctor continued. "Ok. Look, first of all, Chia pets are unnatural and creepy. Secondly, never before has any product, on any planet, at any time, had a more homicidal-rage-inducing theme song!"

"I told you he was going to murder you," I pointed out to Donna.

The Doctor sighed. "No, I'm not going to murder anyone. But I guarantee you, play that blasted thing for the wrong person, and _they_ just might." He stared at the alarm with utter disbelief. "Seriously, though, Donna, _why?_"

Donna shrugged. "It seemed like fun. You wanted us to wake you up, and I thought this would be a… _different_ way to do it."

The Doctor mumbled something about "different" being an understatement, then finally picked himself up off of the ground. "Remind me never to ask you two – "

"Oh no," I interjected, "not 'us two.' I didn't want anything to do with it. It's just that she hit the button before I could completely run away!"

Donna smiled proudly. "Super Temp, remember? Hundred words per minute? I've got speedy fingers."

"I noticed," I remarked.

The Doctor chuckled – he wasn't upset anymore. "Right, well, then, remind me never to ask you, Donna, to wake me up, _ever_ again." He shot another glance at the Chia alarm. "Really, not ever. In fact… Donna, would you please hand me that Chia alarm?"

"What are you gonna do to it?" Donna asked, defensive. "This is a gift from my Gramps, this is!"

"That is a nuisance and a threat to your personal safety, more like," the Doctor retorted. "I promise, Donna, I won't break it; I just want to see it."

Donna reluctantly handed the Chia alarm to the Doctor. The Doctor then whipped out his sonic screwdriver and zapped the clock, before Donna could even object.

That, of course, didn't stop her from objecting after the fact. "Oi!" she exclaimed. "You said you wouldn't break it!"

"Technically, I didn't," the Doctor explained patiently. "It's still all in one piece, isn't it? And, it still tells time – or, at least, it would, were we not in the Vortex. Only thing it doesn't do, is play the Chia song."

"Which is its main function," Donna argued. "To be an alarm clock! So, yes, you broke it."

The Doctor looked Donna right in the eye. "Tell me honestly, Donna, did you really plan on using that alarm clock? With _that_ alarm tone?"

Donna blinked. "Well, no, but – "

"Right, then!" the Doctor exclaimed brightly. "No harm done! In fact, the opposite of harm was done, if you ask me. You still have your little trinket, but it won't make anyone go completely insane. Sounds to me like the perfect arrangement!"

"I… But… Oh, fine!" Donna finally gave in. "Just, give it back, then." She held out her hand, and the Doctor cheerfully gave the alarm clock back to her.

"There we go, all set," the Doctor smiled. "Now, I don't know about you ladies, but I'm starving. What do you say we get something to eat? I'm sort of in the mood for Italian," he rambled, walking out of his room and heading down the hall to the console room, "I mean, really, Italian, as in, Italy. What do you think, maybe, Rome? No, Venice! Yeah, Venice…" He was still talking, but he'd passed out of our range of hearing him. I seriously doubt that he noticed – though he would when we didn't answer him.

"He zapped. My alarm clock," Donna said suddenly, staring at it in disbelief. "He really zapped it. That… that wasn't part of the plan."

For the, I don't know, zillionth time this afternoon, I held back a giggle. "I'm sorry, Donna."

"I hope he realizes that this _so_ means war," she added, a look in her eyes that said she was already planning her next attack.

"But, Donna," I reasoned, "you succeeded in waking him up, right? And it was pretty funny, him falling out of bed. It's not like he ruined your original plan…"

"No, but, he zapped my alarm clock! _That_, my dear Cate, is retaliation, am I right? So, that means, I have to retaliate _back!_" Donna was grinning. "Oh, this is going to be fun!" She practically bounced out of the Doctor's room, most likely heading for the console room to join the Doctor.

I sighed and shook my head, then left for the console room, as well. I can tell that life on the TARDIS is about to get very, very interesting. It's all in good fun, of course – the Doctor and Donna really get along _incredibly_, for all their constant teasing and one-upping each other. They're such good friends that, even when they're getting on each other's nerves, they aren't… well… getting on each other's nerves. If that makes sense. No, I don't think that it does, but hey, welcome to life on the TARDIS. Things rarely make sense – and I like it that way.

At any rate, the TARDIS has just landed in Rome (yeah, the Doctor changed his mind on the city again), so it's dinner time. That's all for now… Hopefully, that will be all for the day, unless we manage to, I don't know, anger some gladiators or something! (Did I mention we landed in _ancient_ Rome? Don't worry, we meant to – maybe the Doctor's trying to make up for missing it last time!)


	13. The Biggest Family on Earth

_Disclaimer: Nope, not even after all this time is it mine._

_A/N: Woah, last chapter – at least for a while. Like I said in the last author's note (which it's quite possible some people didn't read, since there were "Journey's End" spoilers, hence why I'm mentioning this again), I'm going on a vacation to Wales and England myself for a couple of weeks, so I won't be able to write anything. Also, as you'll see, this is just a very good place to take a break. I will probably continue this story later on, though, since I'm having a lot of fun with it and still have some ideas left… But, all the same, this will be the last chapter for a while._

_Also, I should tell you that there are MAJOR __**SPOILERS FOR "JOURNEY'S END"**__ IN THIS CHAPTER!! This chapter pretty much goes along with the end of that episode, so, if you haven't seen it, seriously, DO NOT READ THIS. (For those of you who have seen the episode, you know how there were so many people on the TARDIS, but we barely got to see them interact? Well, here they are, interacting.)_

_Finally, FYI, it says "Entry #23, con't," but it's only continued in "Cate's diary." I didn't actually write the beginning of this entry and just forget to post it – the beginning of Cate's entry would have followed the course of "The Stolen Earth" and the beginning of "Journey's End," but since we've already seen that on TV, it wasn't necessary to rehash it all. (There's still a bit of rehashing in this chapter, because like I said, it follows the episode, but it's more just necessary backbone for the extra bits that I put in. I hope that's how it came out, anyway!)_

_As always, thanks to everyone who's read and reviewed… I hope you enjoy this chapter, and I hope that you'll continue reading when I start up again!_

* * *

Entry #23, con't

… And so, Earth was moved back to its proper place in the universe. Woo hoo!

I mean that, too, the "woo hoo," because there was a literally a _party_ on the TARDIS; music and snack food and everything! Everyone was so happy and excited after the Earth was replaced that no one wanted to go home just yet; not even those of us who had someone to go back to. The Doctor – both of them, presumably – realized this, and let the TARDIS just float about in the Vortex for a while, as the "Children of Time" (as we had been dubbed by Dalek Caan) got to know each other a little better.

After a _lot_ of hugging and cheering in the control room, we all wandered to the den, where there's a bit more room (and more chairs!) to hang around comfortably. Someone turned on some music after a few minutes (I think it was Jack, but since no one ever owned up to it, it may well have been the TARDIS herself), and the two Doctors and Rose brought out some chips and sodas shortly afterwards. Like I said, it was a literal party. All we were missing, I thought, was Gwen and Ianto, and even Luke and K9; they'd helped save the world, too, and it would have been awesome if they could have joined in the fun.

And a fun time it was. Like I said, there was music playing, so of course Jack felt the need to bring every single person in the room for a quick spin – some of us less-quick than others. Jack's energy, though, proved to be contagious: it started with the brown-suited Doctor picking Rose up from where Jack had left her off, and swinging her around the room; the blue-suited Doctor soon followed with Donna, and Mickey joined in shortly with Jackie. Jack started another trend when, while still dancing with me, he grabbed Martha's hand to make us a trio; soon, the whole bunch of us wound up in ever-shifting groups of laughing, celebrating, dancing friends.

After the impromptu dancing, Jack remembered that the Doctor had Twister buried in one of the game chests; he unearthed it, and started setting up the game. Donna, Martha, and Mickey decided to join in, but the Doctor (in the brown suit) chose to set up a game of Scattergories for those of us who didn't fancy playing Twister with the Captain of the Innuendo Squad. I soon found myself locked in the Interdimensional Scattergories Game of Epic Proportions with both Doctors, Jackie, Sarah Jane, and Rose.

After the fifth round of Scattergories, and goodness knows how many rounds of Twister, we packed up the games and settled down just to chat. Sarah Jane and I got up to pour ourselves more soda, meeting a recently-eliminated-from-Twister Martha at the table. Suddenly, Sarah Jane burst out laughing; Martha and I couldn't help but start giggling, too, even though we had no idea what was so funny.

"I'm sorry," Sarah Jane finally gasped out. "It's just… This is unbelievable! When I traveled with the Doctor, it was just never like this! It was wonderful, of course," she added, with an air of nostalgia, "but this… This is something else! It's all so different from the TARDIS – and the Doctor – that I remember. I don't think the Doctor ever came in here back then; at least, he never did when I was in. But now look at him!" She gestured towards the Doctor – the brown-suited one. "There is an honest-to-God _party_ in the TARDIS den, and the Doctor's bustling about like a right host! My, how times havechanged!"

"But where was he, then, if he wasn't in here with you?" Martha asked, curious. "I mean, he used to spend time with me in here, sometimes."

"Me and Donna, too," I added, although I had an inkling as to where Sarah Jane's Doctor (or Doctors) might have been, instead of being in the den.

"Oh, usually tinkering around under the console," Sarah Jane smiled. (Yup, that's what I'd figured.) "He was always trying to fix things on the TARDIS, and I swear, they weren't always broken."

"No, they only broke once he'd started trying to fix them," Martha joked. "At least, that was my experience."

Sarah Jane chuckled. "Ah, so maybe times haven't changed that much after all!"

With our newly filled sodas, we returned to the larger group of people milling about the room. Sarah Jane and Martha started comparing the U.N.I.T. of the '70s with the U.N.I.T. of today, while Jack and Mickey were off in a corner trying to figure out who had the craziest Torchwood stories. The brown-suited Doctor was catching up with Jackie and Rose (yay!), while the blue-suited Doctor was chatting animatedly with an equally animated Donna. (Boy, it was strange essentially having _three _Doctors in the room. You could almost feel the air crackling with their combined energy!)

As for me, I sat down on a centrally-located couch to just take in the scene. I couldn't believe that all of these people were really here. The Doctor and Donna were expected, of course, but then there was the second Doctor, the one who'd apparently grown out of the hand-in-a-jar; that was definitely different. And Sarah Jane was back on the TARDIS; not just standing in it, but actually traveling! She looked so excited to be here, and I couldn't help but be excited for her, too. Jack and Martha were also back on the TARDIS, and it was great to see them back where it all began for them. And Jackie, Mickey, and Rose! That was the most incredible of all. In all the time I've been here, I have never seen the Doctor as happy as he was then, talking to Rose (and Jackie, too). Looking around the room, it really felt as if, even if just for these couple of hours, all was right with the universe.

While I was sitting there, people-watching (and, er, alien-watching?), I felt someone take a seat next to me on the couch. I looked over to see Rose, who was smiling at me.

"We haven't really gotten much chance to talk, what with everything that's been going on tonight," she said. "But the Doctor was just telling me about you; how you got here and everything, and I thought, if there are any two people in this room who have to have a chat, it's us." She smiled at me again, knowingly and almost sadly this time. "Rumor has it we've got something in common."

"You know, I've heard that rumor, too," I smiled back.

"Might be the different dimension thing," she said with a chuckle, but still with that hint of understanding sadness that had been in her smile. "So, how are you holding up?"

I took a moment to really think about my answer – mainly because, to be honest, I'd never really thought about it before. "It's weird," I said, finally. "I never even bothered thinking about how I was holding up, because I _had _to hold up; this was my life now and there was no going back. I was stuck here – not that being with the Doctor is really being 'stuck,'" I added with a smile, which Rose returned.

"I guess," I continued, "I've been alright so far; I mean, I really can't complain, can I? I've worked for Torchwood – I still do, technically, I haven't been fired or anything – and now I'm traveling with the Doctor. And it's been brilliant, and fantastic, and incredible, and the scariest days of my life, and I wouldn't trade it for the world." I paused. "But like I said, I never thought about 'holding up.' Now that I _am_ thinking about it…" I trailed off, putting my thoughts together.

"You remember what you left behind; your friends and family," Rose finished for me. I nodded in agreement. "And you miss them," she added quietly, and I nodded again. "And that's when it gets tough. Whenever you think of the people that you might never see again – that might never see _you_ again." She sighed. "And then, all of a sudden, that choice that had seemed so easy to make – whether to travel with the Doctor or not – becomes one hell of a lot harder."

"Because you're not choosing between staying or going anymore," I took over, "you're choosing sides. Your old friends and family on one, and the new friend and family you've found in the Doctor on the other."

"Exactly," Rose nodded. She looked over at Mickey and Jackie, and then at the Doctor. "Thing is, in the end, it's not really a hard choice at all, is it? You know, all the while, who it is you're gonna choose. You just feel like you're betraying people doing it."

"You're going to choose the Doctor," I said, but it was less of an agreement to her previous statement, as it was me understanding what she was about to do.

She nodded. "I am. I've got to." She gave a sad chuckle, and looked on the verge of tears. "How could I leave him _twice?_" She took a deep breath, looking up at the ceiling, then looked back at me. "What about you? If you were given the choice, who would you choose? 'Cause that's what you need to be sure of, if you're ever gonna be alright, wherever you wind up."

I looked down at my hands. "It's like you said, isn't it?" I sighed. "I can sit here debating it with myself, but… I know, all the while, where I'd choose to go. Or, really, _stay_," I corrected myself. "I'd feel horrible turning my back on everyone who's meant so much to me my whole life, but I'd regret it every day, forever, if I turned my back on _this_ life. There is nothing in my dimension that could ever compare to this – we haven't got a Torchwood or even a U.N.I.T. there." I looked across the room, at the laughing man in the brown suit. "And the Doctor… I couldn't turn my back on him, either. He needs someone with him, or at the very least deserves it; he shouldn't have to be alone." Then I turned and smiled at Rose. "Then again, he wouldn't be alone, would he? He'll have you, now. And there's always Donna, of course, but she might leave someday, even if it's years from now; I have the funny feeling that you won't."

"It's definitely not part of the plan, my leaving," Rose said with certainty. Then suddenly, she was beaming. "You know, though, it seems, at least with the two of us, he never has to worry about being alone again." I grinned back in agreement.

Jack called Rose over then – apparently, Mickey had attempted to tell him an alternate-Torchwood story involving Rose, but couldn't get through it for laughing hysterically; so, Jack wanted Rose to give it a try. Rose excused herself, shaking her head and muttering "Boys," to me with a smile. She only got a few steps, though, before turning back to me.

"Thanks, by the way," she said. "For taking care of the Doctor while I was gone. Like you just said, he needs someone with him."

"Well, it wasn't just me," I told her, not wanting her to give me all the credit when I was far from the only one involved. "There was Martha in the middle, and then, Donna's been here with me for most of the time… Besides," I added almost as an afterthought, "it's really more like _he's_ been taking care of _me_. Of all of us."

Rose smiled at me. "You'd be surprised, you know. All you really need to do is to hold his hand; show him he's not alone." I nodded at her in understanding; and then, with a nod back at me, Rose was off to entertain Jack.

I really liked Rose, I decided then, and I was very excited that she'd be joining (or rejoining, really) the TARDIS team. Because, of course, at that point, I didn't know how the day was going to end.

It was Sarah Jane who started it, just a few minutes after my conversation with Rose. She came over to where the (brown-suited) Doctor was chatting with Jackie, Donna, and me and tapped the Doctor on the shoulder. "Sorry to interrupt," she said, "but I really should be getting home. I've got things – and more importantly, people – there to take care of, too."

The Doctor nodded and we all headed back to the control room as the Doctor started setting the course for Ealing. Before Sarah Jane left, though, I managed to gather everyone together into a group one last time, to take a picture. (We'd all been taking photos in small groups with our respective cell phones or cameras the whole night, but I wanted one with everyone – if only just to prove that we really were all there at the same time.) After the photo, we all said our goodbyes to Sarah Jane.

When she got around to me, she gave me a hug, then rested her hands on my arms. "You're a part of the new generation of TARDIS travelers, you know," she smiled at me. "Enjoy it; every single second of it. It's always best to know what you have, _before_ it goes away." I opened my mouth to make some comment about it never going away, but then I thought better of it, remembering what tends to happen when someone says they'll be with the Doctor forever. Instead, I just smiled back and told her that I would.

With one last wave and a request that we all keep in touch (we'd all been exchanging contact information during the festivities), Sarah Jane left the TARDIS, with the (brown-suited) Doctor following close behind to see her off. The doors to the TARDIS shut, and the rest of us went back to our chatting – although a bit more subdued, now, since it was clear that the celebration was drawing to its close.

I heard Martha mention to the blue-suited Doctor that it was probably time for her to be heading back home as well. Jack mentioned that he'd get off with her; it seemed an odd choice for him, seeing as he's in Cardiff and Martha would be going to London, but I never heard his reasoning, because Mickey came over to me at that moment.

"If you don't mind, I'd like a copy of that group picture," he said.

I tilted my head in confusion. I knew that the Doctor's plan was to drop Jackie and Mickey back off in the alternate dimension, before it closed itself off again; they had a life there, now, so that was where they'd ultimately be returning to. "Of course I don't mind," I finally responded, "but won't that be a little difficult? I mean, you'll be in a different dimension."

Mickey, however, just gave me a steadily-widening smile. My confusion grew proportionally to his smile – until I had a thought. But, no, he couldn't be… "_Won't _you be in a different dimension?" I asked. When he just kept smiling, I exclaimed, "You mean, you're _staying?_"

"I am!" he told me. "It's time for me to come home," he smiled. "I'll get off with Jack and Martha. Besides," he added, "I hear that Torchwood Three is in need of a tech specialist; thought I might see if I could fill that position, if Jack will take me." Then his smile faded. "I'm sorry for your losses, by the way. Jack told me that you work for him," he explained. He sighed. "Tough place to work, Torchwood." The way he said it made me wonder who it was that he had lost to the job, while in the alternate dimension.

"Thanks, Mickey," I nodded. "And good luck to you – though I'm sure that Jack will be happy to hire you."

"'Happy' might be stretching it," Mickey half-joked.

I chuckled. "Well, if you are working for Torchwood, it will be easy for me to get you your picture. I'll just drop it off whenever I manage to convince the Doctor to pay Torchwood a visit."

"Sounds like a plan," Mickey smiled. "Otherwise, just give me a call and we'll work it out."

Just then, we landed in London. Like Sarah Jane had done, Martha, Mickey, and Jack went through the group, saying their goodbyes to the rest of us. I said goodbye to Mickey first, as we were still standing next to each other. Martha came over next, and requested a copy of the group picture, too, as she hugged me goodbye. I promised that I'd get it to her – and also decided then that I'd just make a copy for everyone, and find some way to distribute them all (except for poor Jackie, to whom I wouldn't be able to get a picture).

Finally, Jack came over to say goodbye. "Captain," I said with a mock-formal salute (a trend that Rose had started).

He nodded at me with the same jokingly-formal attitude, then broke out in a huge grin and gave me an even huger hug. "It was great seeing you again, Cate."

"You too, Jack," I said as we let go.

"And I look forward to seeing you _again_, again, sometime," he said, clearly sending a hint.

"I'll definitely try," I told him honestly. "I miss the team – and Cardiff," I said. I shot a glance at the Doctor (the one in the brown-suit). "I'll convince him to land in Cardiff for a bit, and we'll pay you a visit. I promise."

"Good," he smiled. "See you later, then, Cate."

"See you later," I replied. "And say hello to Gwen and Ianto for me!"

A couple of minutes later, it was just the two Doctors, Donna, Rose, Jackie, and me left on the TARDIS. It seemed oddly quiet now, compared to the ten of us that there had been just minutes before – although there were still way more people than I was used to being on board.

When we landed on what turned out to be Bad Wolf Bay, all six of us exited the TARDIS to say goodbye on the beach. I suppose that that should have been the first hint that something was wrong – why were we landing in _Norway_, for one thing, and why were we _all_ getting off this time? But, to be honest, the only thing running through my head as I set foot on the sand was how strange it was that this was the third dimension that I had found myself in this year.

It wasn't long before the situation was perfectly clear, though. The Time Lord Doctor was leaving Rose behind in this dimension yet again – but this time, he was leaving himself with her. The blue-suited, human version of the Doctor would stay with Rose in this alternate dimension, where they could live out the rest of their lives together. No TARDIS, no sonic screwdriver, no psychic paper – but they would have each other. Rose was doubtful at first, but judging by the kiss she gave the human Doctor – _her_ Doctor – after he _finally_ finished the sentence that the Time Lord Doctor never did… Well, I don't think that she doubts him anymore.

As Rose and her Doctor kissed, I felt the Time Lord Doctor put his arm around my shoulder (and Donna's, too, I noticed), turning us around to head back to the TARDIS. I was sad that I wouldn't get the chance to say goodbye to the three friends that we were leaving, but I also didn't want to interrupt the moment, so I left silently with Donna and the Doctor.

And then, almost as suddenly as we'd all wound up on the TARDIS earlier, it was back to being just me, the Doctor, and Donna. The party was over, and life on the TARDIS had, seemingly, returned to the status quo.

I didn't even notice the sad look on the Doctor's face as Donna and I discussed where we should go next; even if I had noticed, I probably would have assumed it was due to leaving Rose behind (again). Neither Donna nor I had any idea that something was wrong – at least, not until Donna started to sound like a broken record and had to lean against the console for support.

"I'm fine," Donna insisted, but it was terribly obvious that she wasn't. It was only then that I noticed the Doctor's expression, and understood that it had something to do with Donna. He explained that if she continued the way that she was, as the DoctorDonna (as the Ood had named her – before we had any idea what it meant), she would die. It reminded me of what happened with Rose, when she absorbed the Time Vortex; so, as the Doctor slowly walked towards Donna, I naively assumed that he would simply kiss the problem out of her, too. Or maybe it was less naivety than wishful thinking.

Either way, I was wrong. Even as Donna begged him not to do it, the Doctor resignedly closed the distance between them and rested his hands on her head – he was wiping her memory. She was unconscious before either of us got the chance to properly say goodbye to her.

We dropped her off with her grandfather and mother, and the Doctor explained that Donna could never be told of her time on the TARDIS. Mrs. Noble seemed almost relieved that Donna would be back home now, for good, but Wilf looked absolutely heart-broken. He had seen what his granddaughter could be, and knew that without memory of the Doctor, Donna would never realize what she had in her. In a way, this was going to be harder on Wilf than it would be on Donna.

As the Doctor and I were leaving, Donna woke up and came down to the room where the rest of us were. She introduced herself to the Doctor and I as if we had never met – in her mind, of course, we hadn't. And really, I had never met the woman in front of me then, either: she was back to being the Donna who had been all set and ready to marry Lance, and that was a Donna Noble I had never known.

The Doctor and I soon said our final goodbyes to the family, and Donna barely even registered us. The Doctor held himself up well, but I was having a harder time keeping myself from crying (though I did manage it, to even my own surprise). Wilf showed us out, and promised us that he would watch the stars for us every night, on Donna's behalf. The Doctor shook his hand and I gave him a hug, and then, it was back to the TARDIS – this time, just the two of us.

I shut the door behind me as the Doctor leaned against the console with a sigh. I chose to lean against the TARDIS door, at first, not quite sure what I should do. Then I remembered what Rose had said, back when the TARDIS had still been bustling with people. "_All he needs is someone to hold his hand…_"

So, I walked slowly over to the Doctor, and that's exactly what I did. He looked over at me and gave me a sad, but appreciative, smile, and squeezed my hand back. He went back to staring at nothing – although he didn't let go of my hand – then all of a sudden turned to me again, pulling me into a hug.

It was only then, as I stood there in that hug, that I couldn't stop myself from crying. I'd done a fairly good job of maintaining control, even through the hardest goodbyes (like Donna's), but something about that hug made me lose it. Even so, I tried to be as inconspicuous as possible about it – like after losing Tosh and Owen, and Jenny, I figured that the Doctor had enough to be concerned about at the moment, without adding me to the list. I think he noticed anyway, though, because I felt him hold me a little closer right after I gave up trying to hold it in anymore. That, or he just has incredible timing.

Eventually, we separated. Trying to inject a bit of cheer into the otherwise bleak situation, I smiled as encouragingly as I could manage and said, "I'm sure we'll see them again, someday. I mean, most of them are easy, like Jack and Sarah Jane, and Martha and Mickey, but even Donna and Rose, right? Never say never ev – "

"No," the Doctor interrupted – not angrily or harshly or even sadly, really, just… truthfully. "No," he repeated, "Donna and Rose – and Jackie and the human me, for that matter – are gone. I – _we_ – have to let them go." He sighed. "It's better that way, for everyone. Donna's happy the way she is; course, that's only because she doesn't know any better, but she'd be dead if she did, so…" He shook his head. "And Rose… She has what she wants, as long as she understands that he _is_ me. If I can't let her go, then she'll always separate the two of us, and then she'll never be happy with that me. No, Cate, this time, it's 'never ever.'" He sighed again, but then attempted a small smile. "Besides, while it's obviously best to remember your past, it's just silly to dwell on it to the point of ignoring your present – or your future."

"'It doesn't do to dwell on dreams, and forget to live,'" I quoted Albus Dumbledore.

The Doctor smiled a bit more genuinely this time. "Good old J. K.," he said lightly. "And as it happens," he continued, "right now, the present – and future, if all goes well – is me, and you, here on the TARDIS, and wherever and whenever else that might bring us."

I broke into my first genuine smile since saying goodbye to Donna, too. "Sounds great to me," I told him.

The mood having been lightened a bit, the Doctor dematerialized the TARDIS so we would float around in the Vortex until we felt like actually going somewhere. Then, the two of us headed to the den; we cleaned up from the party that had been going on only an hour or so before, then collapsed onto a couch to just _sit_. It had been quite a day, and we both needed some time to relax. And so, here we sit, me writing all this in my diary, and the Doctor reading some very large book; just enjoying each other's company, even if we aren't always talking.

This is the first chance I've gotten to truly think back over the day, to be honest. Daleks – I can't believe that I dealt with Daleks! I can't believe I dealt with _Davros_, even more so. I can't believe that I got to meet Rose Tyler, Jackie Tyler, and Mickey Smith – and even Sarah Jane Smith was an exciting surprise, though she was admittedly a lot easier to run into (as she's from this dimension and all). I _really _can't believe that we were all together on the TARDIS!

I wonder how everyone's doing now, having headed back to their "normal" lives yet again. Donna, especially – she's done the most "returning to normal," in a way, as she won't remember anything else. I hope she'll be alright. I mean, I know she'll be literally alright – she's a heck of a lot safer in her old life than she ever was with the Doctor. But, I just really hope that she'll do something with her life, I guess; travel a bit (though just Earth this time), or even just get a steadier job. She's capable of being so much more than "just a temp from Chiswick," because she already _is_ so much more than that. She always had it in her, she just needed someone to let her know. Hopefully Wilf will let her know now, somehow, since the Doctor can't do it anymore. He was so proud of his who his granddaughter was becoming – and with good reason; she was _terrific_. Good old Donna… I wish her the best of luck.

And everyone else… Jack's back with the Torchwood team; Sarah Jane's back with her own "team," of sorts; Martha's gone back to U.N.I.T. – though who knows, maybe Jack got off with her so he could offer her a position at Torchwood (we _would _be looking for a medical doctor, as well as a tech specialist…); Mickey's back in this dimension, and possibly (hopefully) heading to Torchwood as well; Jackie's back to her new life in the alternate dimension, with her rebuilt family… And Rose _finally _has her Doctor. A Doctor she can live the rest of her life with, without worrying about _him_ worrying about watching her "wither and decay" (those were his words, that time, I believe). And, in a way, the Doctor _finally_ has his Rose. He must be so happy – they both must be. Good for them.

Although… I can't help but wish that this Doctor, the Time Lord Doctor, could be that happy, too. After everything he's been through, doesn't he deserve that much? It just doesn't seem fair that he never quite wins in the end.

Then again, I just realized something. Something else that Rose had said… She thanked me earlier for taking care of the Doctor while she was gone, and shortly thereafter had said that, between me and her, the Doctor would never have to worry about being alone again. Well, Rose isn't here anymore, but, I still am; and, just a little while ago, the Doctor was telling me that right now (and hopefully for some time in the future), it's "me and him." So… Maybe Rose had a point. Even if the Doctor hasn't quite _won_ this time (Rose and Donna are still gone, after all), maybe, just maybe, he hasn't quite _lost_, either. Because just this once, the Doctor _didn't _end up completely on his own.


	14. Birthdays and Bandits, pt1

_A/N: Hi everyone! Finally back! Sorry for the wait; I hope you haven't all forgotten me by now hehe. Wales and England were fantastic, though – I'm now seriously convinced that there's a little flat in Cardiff with my name on it, soon as I get the money to pay for it : - ). (Really, nothing against my own country, but you guys in Wales and England have wonderful section of the world over there!)_

_Anyway, welcome back to the story, and thanks more than ever for sticking with it if you've chosen to read this : - ). Hope you enjoy!!_

* * *

Entry #32

It is officially very frustrating that I can't bring my diary with me when going on adventures. (Even the times that I do bring my purse with me, my diary doesn't fit inside.) Because, sometimes, these adventures are rather long and drawn out, and it would be nice to be able to write things as they happen, instead of having to write an extremely detailed outline just to make sure I don't miss anything when I finally get to my diary! Even with said outline, though, I'm sure I'm going to miss _something _from this last outing. Some little quip that was funny – there were a lot of those – or some interesting observation… Ah, well. I've given it my best shot, and I've shaken out my right arm so it will be all prepared for a _very_ long writing session. Here goes…

It all started… Oh, I'm not even going to attempt to reconcile Earth-time with TARDIS time, now, but it started one morning not too incredibly long ago but not, like, yesterday, either. I'd just finished getting dressed and ready for the "day" when, with a shaky _phwump_, the TARDIS materialized at our latest landing site_. _(Thankfully, my make-up was already applied, or I may have looked like a modern-art painting.)

"Oh, this is _brilliant!_" I heard the Doctor cheer from outside the doors of the TARDIS shortly after landing.

I smiled to myself as I walked down the hall from my room to meet the Doctor. I was so glad that the Doctor was really starting to seem like his old self again – the (completely understandable) bit of gloom that had settled over him in the aftermath of the Davros… _incident_ was pretty much gone by now. This made for a far more cheerful atmosphere in the TARDIS – the Doctor was happier, and so, by extension, I was happier, and because we were both happy, the TARDIS was happy. It was like old times… As long as neither of us thought too long about Donna, or Rose. But even that was getting easier.

As I expected, I was met with a beaming Doctor when I opened the TARDIS door and stepped outside. "You're going to _love_ this," he said. "Just guess where we are!"

I looked around. We seemed to be in a forest; a very pretty forest, but nonetheless, a seemingly ordinary forest. There was absolutely nothing in this forest that could give me any hint as to where – or when – we might have been. "I give up, Doctor. Where are we?"

"Well," he said, drawing the word out, "we're in England. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure _where_ in England; somewhere in the middle, though, I think. Well, middle… ish." He shrugged, then continued. "More interestingly, the year is 1191."

"Seriously!?" I exclaimed brightly. "This is _fantastic!_" I've always been interested in that general time period; it was the only section of history classes that I'd thoroughly enjoyed in high school, and I always love a good medieval fair. I couldn't believe the luck of the TARDIS choosing to bring us here! (We were, as far as I knew, still set to random – the Doctor was feeling better, but not quite enough to consciously choose a destination.)

Thinking on medieval fairs, though, something dawned on me. "Wait a minute… I'm wearing jeans and a tee-shirt," I pointed out. "That won't really go over very well in this time period, will it? Bare arms, and pants on a woman?"

The Doctor thought for a moment. "No, I suppose not. You could get away with it, though – you know that, you've managed before in times and places where 21st-century clothing styles aren't exactly the norm. Unless," he added, seeing my grin falter slightly, "you wanted to get changed?"

"Well, sort of, actually," I admitted. "I'd go to medieval fairs and look at all those gorgeous dresses, and I always wished I had a reason to wear one… It just seems that, you know, now I kind of do…" I trailed off.

The Doctor chuckled. "I suppose, then, if you really wanted to, we can spare a few minutes while you find yourself a dress in the wardrobe." Suddenly, he started smiling in that, "I-know-something-you-don't-know" kind of way. "Besides, given what day it is, you deserve to dress however you'd like."

I blinked in confusion. "Um… What day is it? Some sort of holiday?"

"Nope!" he said brightly, popping the "p" and bouncing on his heels. "It is, as a matter of fact… Your birthday!"

"It's – I – what!?" I spluttered, shocked. "It's my birthday?"

"Well, technically," the Doctor answered. "I mean, I doubt that it is _here_, where and when we've landed, and really, you haven't even been born yet, at this point… But, back in your proper time and place, yes, it's June 6, 2008. You're nineteen! Told you I'd let you know," he beamed at me. "I was going to tell you as soon as you woke up, but then I thought that I'd surprise you with this trip instead. You've mentioned before being interested in this time period, so I figured, why not?"

"You mean, you chose this place, for me?" I asked.

"I did," he answered. "It's a birthday gift!"

I couldn't believe it! This trip was his own idea – which made it the first time since Davros that he'd actually deliberately _chosen_ a place to go. And he'd done it for me. Extremely appreciative (and even somewhat flattered), I thanked him with a huge hug.

"I suppose I should go find myself a dress, then," I smiled, letting go of him.

"Just don't pick anything too flashy!" he called as I retreated back to the TARDIS. "Don't want to stand out!"

I dashed to the wardrobe, and found the section for 13th-century dresses. There were a couple that I would have _loved _to wear – I would have felt like a princess! – but that exact thought made me wonder if maybe they were, in fact, meant for royalty. I wasn't supposed to stand out, and so I reluctantly turned away from the fancier dresses to look through the slightly plainer ones. I settled on a forest green, linen (I think) dress with tapered sleeves and a square neck; it was completely undecorated, except for a bit of light green stitching at the hems of the bottom and sleeves. I didn't feel quite like a princess, but it was still _awesome_. (And perfect for the slight-cool weather – I'd been a bit chilly in my tee-shirt earlier.) I grabbed a pair of simple brown shoes, and hoped that the dress would blend in enough to make the Doctor happy.

Based on the Doctor's approving smile as I stepped back out of the TARDIS, I figured I'd chosen well. "Happy now?" he teased.

"As a matter of fact, I am," I told him chirpily. "What do you think?"

"You look lovely," he said. "Now come on, let's go! No idea where to, but finding out is half the fun!"

So, the Doctor and I wandered the forest a bit... But, did I mention that we were in a forest? I mean, a real, legitimate _forest_. Now, being from Stowe, I'm used to woodsy areas, but the Doctor's and my current location was a forest from back when there weren't cities and cars and random houses spread through it. In other words, this forest was large and thick, and we seemed to be right smack-bang in the middle of it. There wasn't a soul in sight, let alone a town or village to stop by. We walked for about half an hour in one direction, but after coming no closer to any sort of civilization, we decided to turn around and try going the other way from the TARDIS instead.

There was, though, a small problem with that. We walked back to the place where we'd left the TARDIS, only to find it... not there.

"Are you sure we're in the right place?" I asked him.

"Yes, I'm sure we're in the right place," the Doctor responded, sounding more than a little preoccupied. "We landed right here, in front of this tree," he said, patting a nearby trunk. "Remember? It's got the funny little knobbly branch, just there?"

"Um..." Honestly, I thought a lot of the trees we'd seen had funny little knobbly branches; it wasn't that unusual to see, on a tree. But, I've learned, sometimes it's best just to go along with the Doctor. "Right. Of course," I said. "_That_ tree. Thing is... The tree's there, and the TARDIS isn't."

"Yes, I've noticed that..." He trailed off with a frustrated sigh, and started searching the general area. "I don't understand!" he exclaimed, looking behind some trees to our left. "My sense of direction is _perfect!_ Well, nearly perfect, but who's counting?" He dashed over to some trees behind the one we (apparently) had parked the TARDIS in front of. "And I assure you, with 100-percent certainty, that this was the precise spot that we left the - " He broke off suddenly. "Oh, no..."

Well, that sounded bad. "What's wrong?" I asked, worried.

"I've found the TARDIS," he said sadly, pointing away from us as I ran over to him.

Looking in the direction of his point, I saw a road. It was in the opposite direction from where we'd headed before; it wasn't far from where we now stood, but it was down a bit of a hill, which explained why we hadn't seen it before. And on this road, thirty or thirty-five yards away (and counting), was a group of burly, armed men on horseback. Some of these horses were dragging a wooden platform - and on this platform sat the TARDIS, slowly but surely being led away from the Doctor and me.

"_Hey!_" the Doctor called to the men. They didn't show any sign of having heard him - which didn't surprise me, based on their distance and figuring in the sound of the horses and the dragging platform. Of course, they _might_ have heard him, and just weren't interested in stopping for what would have looked to them to be merely a skinny man in strange clothes, who had nothing but a young woman for back-up.

This didn't stop the Doctor from trying, though. "_Oi!_" he called again, raising his volume. "Excuse me, but that's my box - !"

At that exact moment, someone came from goodness-knows-where (a tree, maybe?), and knocked both the Doctor and me to the ground. "Mind keeping your voice down, so as _not_ to get us all killed?" the man who tackled us snapped in a vaguely Northern English accent. (Maybe it was a Midlands-area accent? I've been trying to work out the various regional accents now that I live in Britain, but spending most of my time _not_ on Earth makes that tricky.) Not getting killed seemed a good idea to me, so I continued to keep my mouth shut; I was slightly surprised that even the Doctor didn't bother to argue. Maybe he was in shock.

After maybe thirty seconds - time enough, I suppose, for the armed men to get out of earshot – the strange man got off of us and gave me a hand up. As he turned to help the Doctor, I noticed that the man wasn't all that much older than me; there couldn't have been more than ten years between us. There was something odd about him – somehow, he appeared to be both very well-mannered and very mischievous at the same time. I also noticed that he was carrying a bow and a quiver of arrows.

"So," the man asked suddenly, "mind explaining what that was all about?"

"Do _we _mind explaining!?" the Doctor sputtered in disbelief. "We aren't the ones who just tackled two random strangers! I think that _you're_ the one who should explain!"

"Fair enough," the man answered with a nonchalant shrug. "Those men are with the Sheriff. If they see you as a threat, they'll kill you – no questions asked. You, Sir, standing on the top of a hill in your unusual clothes, screaming at them at the top of your voice, would most certainly be considered a threat. And don't think they would have spared the young lady – if she was with you, she'd suffer the same fate. Now, if I shouted at you, to make you stop shouting, we'd both be making so much noise that all three of us would have been captured and most likely put to death. Aiming to avoid that, I shut you up in the only other way I could think of. I dare say you'd rather be bruised than dead?"

"You have to give him that, Doctor," I pointed out.

"Suppose so," the Doctor agreed.

The strange man nodded. "Thank you. Now, why is it exactly that you were shouting at those guards?"

The Doctor shook his head. "They took my – well, my box. And I need that box." He looked over at me, and added, "We _both_ need that box. It is very, _very_ important that we have that box; without that box, we can't get home."

"I'm very sorry for your loss, my friends," the man said, "but might I ask why you left something so valuable out in plain sight?"

"We didn't know it was in plain sight," I explained. "The way the hill is angled, we couldn't see the road below it – but anyone _on_ the road could see up the hill, and thus see the TAR – the box," I caught myself.

"I see," the man nodded. "It's an understandable mistake; there are many who miss that road from this area of the forest, even those who have lived here all their lives." He smiled at us, appearing truly friendly for the first time. "Tell me, what are your names?"

"I'm the Doctor, and this is my friend, Cate Thomas," the Doctor responded.

"Just 'the Doctor?'" the man asked, raising an eyebrow. The Doctor nodded in response, and the man nodded back. "Alright, then. It's a pleasure to meet you, Doctor, Cate – although I am sorry it had to be in such an… _unconventional_ manner." The Doctor opened his mouth to object to the understatement that was "unconventional," but I put a hand on his arm to stop him.

"I am happy to tell you, though," the man continued with a grin, "that if the Sheriff's taken something of yours without the right to do so, you're talking to the right man. My friends and I have a habit of returning things that the Sheriff has unjustly taken." The man gave a short, quick bow. "I am Robin, Lord of Loxley, though some people call me – "

"Robin Hood!" I finished for him, trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to contain my shock and excitement. No _way _was I really talking to Robin Hood!

"Well, yes, actually," Robin smiled at me, looking a bit surprised. "I see you've heard of me, then."

"Oh, we certainly have," the Doctor answered far more calmly than I had (though there was a new spark in his eyes). "Stealing from the rich to give to the poor… Talk of you stretches much farther than you know." (Now _that _was an understatement!)

"I'm flattered," Robin laughed. Then he gave us an appraising look, and added, "You two should follow me. I'll take you back to where my friends and I have set up camp for the night; it is nearly supper time, and we'd be more than happy to have you as guests before you go into town to find accommodation."

"Oh, we'd hate to intrude," the Doctor argued – much to my disappointment.

My mood brightened, though, when it became clear that Robin was having none of the Doctor's objections. "You won't be intruding on anything; I'm _inviting _you," he said. "Besides, I'd like to hear more about this box of yours – as, I'm sure, would my friends."

"I just don't…" The Doctor glanced over at me, and I gave him my best (although hopefully subtle), "Oh, _please?_" look. Apparently, it worked, because finally the Doctor sighed and, running a hand through his hair, said, "Oh, alright, then. Thank you very much for your hospitality."

"Think nothing of it," Robin replied. "It's the least I can do after knocking you both to the ground earlier." ("Fair point," the Doctor muttered so that only I could hear him. In response, I discreetly poked him in the ribs and shook my head at him.) "If you two will just come this way, then…" Robin gestured off to the left and started heading in that direction. The Doctor shrugged at me and made to follow him, and I excitedly fell in behind.


	15. More Mysteries, pt2

_Disclaimer: I don't own "Doctor Who," and am more than happy to give credit to the brilliant minds that do._

_A/N: Hello, everyone! Thanks, as always, to everyone who's been reading, and especially to those who've been adding this to their alerts and/or favorites. I'm glad you're enjoying it!_

_And, just to make it clear – in case it isn't made clear enough later in the chapter – this segment isn't a crossover with the BBC's "Robin Hood" series, or any of the other zillions of Robin Hood movies/shows/etc. This is supposed to be the "real" Robin Hood, if there was one; the one the legends were based on. In other words, this Robin Hood doesn't look like Jonas Armstrong, or Carey Elwes, or Errol Flynn… etc. He's his own guy. (But not Guy like Guy of Gisbourne, because he's someone else entirely – who doesn't look at all like Richard Armitage, in this story.)_

_Anyway, enjoy the chapter! (It's a bit on the long side, but I had a lot to squish in.)_

--

Entry #32, con't

The Doctor and I followed Robin for about twenty minutes before reaching the Merry Men's camp. (I wonder if they're actually called "the Merry Men" at this point?) A few minutes into the journey, the Doctor leaned towards me and whispered, "I'm sorry, you know. I'd wanted your birthday trip to be a break from any fiascos, but now we've got to get the TARDIS back…"

I shook my head, smiling at him. "Don't worry about it. It's not like I didn't know what I was getting into, traveling with you," I winked. "Besides, _that_," I added even more quietly, pointing at Robin (who was leading the way), "is Robin Hood. Honest-to-God, that's _Robin Hood!_ I've loved stories about him since I was little! I remember watching that Disney cartoon, you know, where they were all animals; and I had a stuffed Wishbone dressed like Robin Hood, and I've been watching the BBC series…" I trailed off, realizing that I was getting dangerously close to gushing. (And, did the Doctor even know who Wishbone was?) Much more calmly, I continued, "But I always thought he was just a legend!"

"Well, he looks real enough to me," the Doctor mused. "Not to mention that I've never met a figment of my imagination that could physically knock me to the ground," he added with a teasing smile.

"Ha, ha," I teased back. "Really, though, this is the real Robin Hood? The one that all of the legends were based on?"

"I can't think of a good reason why he isn't," the Doctor answered. "Thing with legends is, almost all of them are based on a shred of truth. This man quite probably is that shred of truth."

I beamed at the Doctor. "This is so _cool!_"

"I'm just glad you're not going to have a miserable birthday," he smiled back, "even with the TARDIS needing rescuing."

"You have nothing to worry about," I assured him, and we continued the rest of the walk in cheerful silence.

Before too long, we reached Robin's camp. At first, it seemed to be less of a "camp" than a spot of ground, as I noticed a group of four men just sitting on logs, chatting. Then I noticed that these men were, in fact, sitting in front of a dug-out opening in a hill - _that_ must be the actual camp, I figured, but they were sitting outside because it would probably be rather dark in that cave.

Robin called out to the men just as they came into our view; they looked up from their conversation to greet their returning friend, but all wound up with an almost identical look of bewilderment on their faces when they saw the Doctor and me. They tried to hide their confusion almost as quickly as it showed up, but it didn't really work.

"This is the Doctor, and his friend, Cate," Robin introduced (clearly, he'd seen his friends' puzzled looks, too). "The Sheriff and his men have stolen something of theirs that is very important to them. I've told them that we can help them get it back - and that we'd be more than happy to provide them with a meal before they head into town for the night."

The four men nodded in understanding. Going by what I knew of the legends, I tried to figure out who was who in the group. I assumed that the eldest man was the ironically-nicknamed Little John (he was probably in his early forties, and _anything _but little), and that the youngest (who couldn't have been more than a year or two older than me) was probably Will Scarlett. That left the two other men, one around Robin's age and one who looked a couple of years younger. The older one was definitely Alan a Dale - I'd heard "Will" say his name to get his attention - which meant that the younger one was most likely...

"Hello, I'm Much; pleased to meet you both."

Yup, I was right: the younger of the two was Much. While I was predicting their identities, he had gotten up from his seat (er, log) to greet us. He shook my hand and flashed me a very friendly smile. I decided then that I liked this Much just as... um, much as I liked Sam Troughton's - which is saying _quite_ a lot.

(Woah, weird moment. Writing about Sam Troughton while traveling with the Doctor. Thank goodness I'm with the tenth Doctor, and not - by some odd timeline twisting - the second one. That would have been too bizarre.)

After he'd greeted the Doctor, Much said, "Don't worry, we'll get your things back. We have a pretty good track record of things like that, so far, I think." He gave us another kind smile. "I'm also the one who'll be cooking for you tonight - and every night, although I suppose it's just 'tonight' for you two..." He shook his head and shrugged. "Anyway, we've only got chicken and some greens at the moment, so I hope that will do."

"That'll be fine, thanks," I told him, and the Doctor nodded in agreement. I hoped my smile was as friendly as Much's.

Following Much's example, the other three introduced themselves as the Doctor and I joined the circle, sitting on some extra logs that Robin had grabbed for us. I was happy to see that I'd predicted everyone's identities correctly. They all seemed like very nice people, and willing to welcome us in - almost surprisingly so. But, I guess, this is what they do: help people who have been wronged by the Sheriff. Right about now, that meant the Doctor and me.

"So, what exactly is it that happened out there?" Alan asked, once the introductions were set.

There was a very brief pause as the Doctor concocted an acceptable explanation - one that _didn't_ include aliens and time travel. He told them that he and I were delivery people (no, really, that's what he said), and that we'd be hired to bring a large blue box from Portsmouth to Birmingham. Unfortunately, a storm had rendered our usual roads impassable at one point, and so we got rather lost. We'd just managed to readjust our route when the box was stolen; he tried to call after the men who had taken the box, but that was when Robin showed up.

Robin then explained that he'd been patrolling the area, and noticed the Sheriff's men heading down it, looking to be on a mission. He discreetly followed them; he saw them load up the box and take it away. It wasn't very long before the Doctor and I showed up, and he had to stop us from "asking to be beheaded." (Robin's words, not mine.)

The men all chuckled at Robin's tale - but none of their teasing was mean-spirited. "A word of advice, friends," Little John said, "yelling at anyone involved with the Sheriff is a very bad idea. It will never end well."

"I don't think they're from around here, though," Will pointed out helpfully. (If he only knew how right he was!) "They couldn't have known the trouble they were getting into. Most sheriffs are supposed to _protect _their people, aren't they?"

"Yeah, well, ours doesn't; right jerk that he is," Alan scoffed. Then he smiled widely. "But that's why it's so much fun to take everyone's stuff _back _from him!"

I chuckled along with the rest of the men. Then, Robin said, "Much, why don't you get the dinner cooking? Then we can all figure out how to help these poor people get their box back."

While dinner was cooking, the Merry Men chatted amicably with the Doctor and me. True to his word, Robin waited until we were all eating to discuss the actual reclamation of the TARDIS. "So, about this box of yours," he said to the Doctor and me. "I think I may have an idea of how we can help you get it back."

"Brilliant!" the Doctor smiled. "Thank you very much."

"Well, don't thank me too much just yet," Robin responded, slightly apologetically. "My plan requires you and Cate to do the actual finding and retrieving of the box. My friends and I will only be able to get you into the castle, where your box most likely should be.

"See, a few days ago, Marion – a, um, friend of mine, who lives in Nottingham, near to the castle – came to let us know that the Sheriff has a strange visitor; a very rich king, apparently. My friends and I came up with a complex plan to infiltrate the castle tomorrow, around noon, to see if we can't get some of those riches for the poor of Nottingham," Robin explained with a roguish smile. "Unfortunately, it will be very hard to edit your box into our plan at this point, and we don't have the time to come up with a new one – the king leaves the day after tomorrow. But, we _can_, at the very least, have you come along with us to get yourselves into the castle. After that, though, you'll have to be on your own. I'm sorry."

"Getting our box back isn't your concern, I understand," the Doctor said. "Whatever help you can give us is appreciated, but we're quite used to doing things on our own, anyway. We'll be fine." His words were friendly enough, but there was a sudden hint of iciness to them. Why, though, I couldn't figure.

I didn't have much time to wonder about it just then, though, because Robin was speaking again. From the tone of his voice, he hadn't seemed to notice the Doctor's shift in demeanor. "In that case, we'll meet you tomorrow morning, round the back of the Grey Goose Inn – they're sympathetic to our cause, despite their relative means," he said. "We'll be dressed as play-actors, with costumes and masks, but I'll be sure to show you the outfits before you leave so that you'll recognize us." (Somehow, I thought we'd recognize the random band of elaborately-costumed men, even if we'd never seen the outfits; but, I didn't bother pointing it out.)

The Doctor nodded, then asked, "So, this king: I assume he's not the king of England?"

"King Richard?" Much asked with surprise. "Certainly not; King Richard's still off fighting in the Holy Land. That's the whole problem, isn't it? If he were here, he'd put a stop to the Sheriff's ridiculous practices."

"Right, of course," the Doctor responded casually, but I could tell that there was a point behind the innocence. "Just wondering, though, if this king isn't the king of England, then… I assume that his riches haven't actually come from exploiting the poor of Nottingham?"

"Well, no," Robin shrugged. "But – "

"So," the Doctor continued, completely ignoring Robin's attempt to talk, "stealing from him to give to the poor of Nottingham isn't really returning what was wrongfully taken, it's more like… Well, just plain old stealing." (Ah. So _that's_ what had been bothering the Doctor before.)

Robin's eyes narrowed. "His people aren't our concern, Doctor. We can only help so many, and somebody a world away is simply outside of our reach. I am looking after my own people first and foremost; let an American take care of the Americans."

"The _who!?_" the Doctor and I exclaimed simultaneously, with identical shocked tones and expressions.

"That's what we said," Will commented. "We'd never heard of the country, either, when Marion said he's the king of America. Very far away, apparently, and tiny."

"Well he's right on one count, this guy; it's definitely _far_ away," the Doctor muttered quietly, so that only I could hear. Then he went back to addressing the group – nonchalant as ever. "So, the Sheriff's visitor is the king of America, then?"

"So he says," Alan answered. "Why? You know it?"

"Oh, no, we're just as clueless as you lot," the Doctor said brightly. "It's just, you know, the whole delivery thing… If we could talk to this king, we might be able to get a whole new market! Wouldn't that be lovely, Cate?"

"Terrific," I replied with as much cheer as I could muster, in my very confused state. (King of America!? What?)

"Actually, your talking to the king would be a great help to us," Robin pointed out. "You could distract him while we stole some of his things! Then, once we were done, we could distract the king and the Sheriff with a show – we're supposed to be players, remember – while you two find your box!"

Robin looked so excited that I was sure we'd agree to the plan, but the Doctor looked very doubtful. "No offense, Robin, but I really don't want to get involved in your thievery. I'm all for returning what rightfully belongs to someone else, but this is taking things a step too far."

But Robin was undaunted. "You need us to get into the castle. You could use us to distract the king while you're getting your box – and don't say that you're used to doing things on your own, Doctor, because as competent as I'm sure that you are, everyone can use a hand sometimes. And, we could use you to help us distract the king for our own business." He spread his arms and grinned. "It's a perfect set up! What does it matter what we're doing behind your back? You're there on your own business – talking to the king and getting your box back – and we're there on ours. Completely separate; just… coincidental timing."

The Doctor still looked unsure, so I decided to add my two cents. "I think he's got a point, Doctor. We have nothing to do with what they're doing; we're on our own. We just happen to be there at the same time. Besides, we really should talk to this King of America," I said pointedly. Then I lowered my voice so that only he could hear me, to add, "And we _really_ need to get the TARDIS back!"

The Doctor considered everything for a moment, then sighed. "Fine," he finally consented. "But know that I am _not_ condoning your actions."

"Great! It's settled, then," Robin said with a smile that made it pretty clear he'd known all along that the Doctor would agree. "Now," Robin continued, "I should show you the masks and clothes, so you'll know who we are when you see us tomorrow morning. We don't have anything for you, obviously, but I suppose you could be in charge of our props." He started walking toward the cave/camp, explaining on his way, "Then you two should probably head into Nottingham for the evening. I don't mean to send you away, but it will take some time to get into town, and it will be getting dark soon." With that, he disappeared into the cave.

"And you don't really want to be out in the woods during the night," Alan picked up. "There are bandits in this area, you know," he finished with a wink, conveying that the "bandits" he was referring to were actually the group of men that the Doctor and I were currently involved with.

Robin returned with a mask, shirt, and pants in his hands. The mask was simple – like what a Carnivale mask must look like before it gets decorated, almost – but the clothes… Well, let's just say that I was right in thinking that it would be hard for the Doctor and me to mistake the Merry Men for random strangers because of their disguises. "Theatrical" would be an understatement!

Anyway, Robin showed us the outfits, then ran through the plan one more time. (Meet in the morning behind the Grey Goose Inn; let Robin do the talking to get us into the castle; the Doctor and I find the "King of America" while Robin and company steal the gold; Robin and company distract the Sheriff and the King while the Doctor and I find the TARDIS; we all hightail it out of the castle and head on our merry ways.) He then gave us directions to the Grey Goose Inn – the Doctor and I figured we'd just stay there for the night – and we were on our way.

It took us about twenty minutes to reach the town, and another fifteen before we were settled into a room at the inn. (Yes, only one room, but, unlike what happened with Martha, we managed a room with two beds.) After all was said and done, I was really rather tired and really wanted to go to sleep. But, I shortly discovered that that would be easier said (or wished for) than done.

See, most of the way into the town, the Doctor discussed the events – and the mysteries – of the day. How could there be a King of America, when America had never had a king and, in fact, wouldn't even be a country for another few centuries? How were we going to get an audience with this mysterious king to find out? How would we know when the Merry Men were done with their pilfering so that we could go look for the TARDIS? What if the TARDIS wasn't actually in the castle at all? Unfortunately, we didn't have many answers; we figured we'd just have to wait until the morning to discuss things further with Robin. And, as always, the Doctor was a big supporter of just improvising in the moment. ("The more detailed you make your plan ahead of time, the more likely it is to crumble into teeny-tiny pieces when the moment comes, and then you wind up winging it anyway!" he says. I often marvel to myself that he's managed to live as long as he has, living life the way he does.)

Now, because our conversation had brought us no closer to having any answers, I figured we really were just going to leave things till the next morning. But, no: there was still one thing that was bothering the Doctor, and apparently he couldn't quite leave it alone. Not even in the middle of the night.

"Cate?" I heard him say tentatively, just as I was drifting off to sleep. Actually, at first I thought that I might have dreamt it, but when he said my name a second time, I realized that I was definitely awake.

"Hm?" I said in response, still dragging myself back from sleepiness.

"I was just thinking…" he started, then paused. "It's really quite unfair that Robin and his friends are stealing from this king, to give to the poor of Nottingham. Now, I'm not saying that the poor of Nottingham don't deserve all the help they can get, nor that they don't deserve to get their money back from the Sheriff, whose laws really are quite harsh, but… This king has nothing to do with Nottingham."

"I know, Doctor," I said. I was wondering when this was going to come up, really – he'd been pretty clearly bothered by it earlier in the day. "But, for all we know, he _is_ in cahoots with the Sheriff somehow. I mean, obviously, he's not _really_ the king of America, so it's not like he's been stealing from any Americans, anyway…" I trailed off, shrugging as much as I could while lying down. "Personally, I think we should wait to worry about Robin's actions until we know what this king is all about."

There was a pause while the Doctor considered what I said. "I suppose you're right," he said eventually. "I'll just be thinking myself into corners, round and round in circles – and yes, Cate, that is possible," he added.

"I wasn't going to argue with you, Doctor," I yawned. "It's too late at night to do anything but accept that you have circles with corners in your mind. Or, maybe, corners that are circular…" I yawned again. "Never mind. Either way, I accept it."

The Doctor chuckled. "You do sound tired. We did do an awful lot of walking, I suppose… though oddly you're always fine with the running for your life…"

"Yes, because that's adrenaline," I explained. "This was all very calm, cool, and collected; and so, now, I have nothing left forcing me to keep going. Because, for once, I don't have to."

"Got it," the Doctor said. "Goodnight, then, Cate."

"Goodnight, Doctor," I replied, turning myself back over to go to sleep. But, thirty seconds later…

"What if we tried to take the money from Robin, though, and return it to… wherever this king is really from?"

"How about we worry about that once we actually know where he's from?" I suggested – without turning around this time.

"Well, we have the TARDIS, we can go literally anywhere!"

I sighed, and tried another tactic to get him to leave it till the morning. "Do you really want to try to steal from accomplished thieves?"

This seemed to have some effect, thank goodness. "Well, I suppose that might prove tricky…"

"Exactly. And so, goodnight, Doctor," I said through yet another yawn.

"Right. Goodnight, Cate."

There was a long enough period of silence for me to assume that I was finally going to get the chance to go to sleep. But, you know what they say about assuming…

"But what if – "

"_Goodnight_, Doctor!" I said pointedly.

"Sorry. Yes. Goodnight."

Another pause.

"We might be able to – "

"_Goodnight_, Doctor!" I said, with even more force than the last time.

"Sorry. Again. Goodnight, Cate."

Another pause.

"Really though, it's possible – "

I didn't even bother saying goodnight this time. Instead… You know how at hotels, they tend to put two pillows on the beds? Well, I took that second pillow and chucked it at the Doctor.

There was a short moment of quiet, then: "Right. Suppose I deserved that. Goodnight, Cate."

I smiled to myself, happy with my success. "Goodnight, Doctor."

But, a minute or so later…

"Cate?"

I somewhat huffily turned myself over to face him again. "_Yes_, Doct – "

My griping was interrupted, though, by something soft bopping me in the head. I reached up to grab the object in question, and found it to be the pillow I'd just tossed at the Doctor. I should have known that the Doctor would manage to get the last word, so to speak.

"Goodnight, Cate!" the Doctor said cheerfully. I could tell that he was beaming that million-watt smile, even in the dark. "Pleasant dreams!"

I was torn between wanting to scream and wanting to laugh hysterically. It was really difficult to stay frustrated with him, actually (the Doctor can have that effect on a person), even though he was keeping me from getting the sleep I so desperately wanted. There was just something comical about a 900-year-old alien stooping to a pillow fight.

In the end, I just shook my head and wished him pleasant dreams, too – even though I had no idea if he would be sleeping at all that night, or if his dreams were ever pleasant anymore (maybe I'd just read too many fan fictions about Time War nightmares, but you never know). Then, I _finally _was able to get to sleep.


	16. Hatching the Plan, pt3

_Disclaimer: All credit goes to the brilliant minds who think this stuff up for a living._

_A/N: Ack! I am so so so so SO sorry that this took so long to post; moving back to college sort of put a damper on my writing plans. (Classes, homework, club meetings, and, oh yeah, Internet problems galore -sigh-.) But now things have settled back into a routine (and my Internet works!), so hopefully I should be able to get the chapters out in a more reasonable space of time. Again, sorry, and thanks for sticking with this if you're still reading it ._

_Enjoy!!_

* * *

Entry #32, con't

The next morning, the Doctor and I grabbed a quick breakfast at the tavern below the inn (I love how, like, every inn in this time period has a tavern attached to it!), then stood as nonchalantly as possible around the back of the building, waiting for Robin and the rest of the gang. They arrived just a few minutes later, in all their elaborately-costumed glory.

"Ready for the greatest heist of our careers?" Alan asked with a slight swagger as he walked over. (Any confidence that the swagger should have exuded, though, was a bit lost in the funny outfit.)

"_We_ are not heisting," the Doctor told him pointedly, gesturing to himself and me. "_We_ are retrieving."

"But we're ready for that, too," I assured the others, trying to diffuse the situation before anyone made the mistake of arguing with the Doctor.

"Wonderful!" Robin said cheerfully. He started walking toward a nearby path leading to the center of the town. "Let's get going, then."

As Robin, in his over-done costume, proceeded to walk through town as if there was absolutely nothing unusual about his state of dress (or his true business), I couldn't help but notice that that, at least, was a similarity between him and the Doctor. The Doctor, too, has a tendency to behave as if he completely belongs wherever he is, even when he sticks out like a sore thumb; I'd never seen anyone else execute that as well as the Doctor, but Robin was coming in an extremely close second. I couldn't help but smile to myself – though I wasn't so sure that the Doctor would be as pleased with my observation as I was.

It felt like it took some time to get to the castle from the inn, but it probably wasn't as long as I thought it was; it's just that the Doctor and I were carrying the props box (we were supposed to be in charge of the props, after all), and it got heavy after a while. But eventually, we did reach the castle; we passed through the gates with relative ease, but it was the tough-looking guards standing at the door that most worried me. What if they wouldn't let us in?

But Robin – still very much like the Doctor – showed no sign of nervousness. He strode right up the steps as the rest of us waited below, and talked animatedly to the guards (he was wearing his mask, so there was a lot of wild gesturing going on where facial expressions normally would have gone). Robin reached the end of his "we're here to entertain the Sheriff and the King of America" spiel, and – after a short pause that felt more like ages – the guards nodded and started opening the doors. Robin gestured for us all to join him, although we'd all already started climbing the steps as soon as the doors moved.

Once we were inside – and clear of the guards – Robin turned to the Doctor and me. "Alright, we're headed for the store rooms; guests' first, then the main one, if we've got time," he whispered, indicating the rest of the men. "You two go talk to that king. The Sheriff usually has his guests stay down that hall just there," he added, pointing to our left, "so that will probably be a good place to start. We'll have the play set in a little less than an hour's time, so I hope you'll be done by then."

"You're seriously going to be able to steal the money, get it back to the camp, and get back here again in less than an hour?" I asked, still not believing it even though we had run through this plan many times.

Robin smiled the same crooked smile he'd been giving me since the first time I asked. "Trust me, Cate – we have our ways. Like I've been telling you, there are those in the area who are sympathetic to us; they'll help hide it until we're ready to take it away."

I nodded. "If you say so…"

"And I do," Robin assured me, "though your concern is appreciated. However, I suggest we all get a move on, now, before we start garnering unwanted attention for standing here in a whispering group." With that, Robin and his men headed off toward the store rooms, leaving the Doctor and me standing in the hallway.

The Doctor looked at me and blinked. "Well… Allons-y, then, I s'pose," he said with a shrug, and led the way down the hall Robin had pointed out earlier.

About halfway down the hall, we noticed a door that had two armed guards stationed in front of it. That looked promising, so we strode purposefully over to the guards.

"Hello!" the Doctor said brightly. "We're here to see the king of America; have we got the right room?"

The guards didn't seem to be affected by the Doctor's winning smile, but I can't say that I expected them to be. Instead, their expressions didn't change in the slightest. "Oh yeah?" the guard on the left asked. "'Oo are you, then? Thinkin' ya can just waltz on in ta see royalty?"

"Ah, of course, of course," the Doctor said bracingly, "you can't let just _anyone_ through, certainly not. You wouldn't be very good guards if you did, now would you?" He shot them another brilliant grin. (It was just as ineffectual as the first, but at least he was trying.)

"Too right we wouldn't," the guard on the right responded, as they both puffed up with pride. "And we're two of the best, we are."

"Clearly!" the Doctor laughed. "You're guarding the foreign king! You must be great at what you do! So, obviously, the only reason that you don't know that the king was expecting a visitor at… oh, about now, is because someone must have forgotten to tell you."

The guards narrowed their eyes at each other, and then at us. "There's nothin' we don't know 'bout that king and 'is bus'ness," the left guard told us. "If 'e 'ad a visitor comin', we'd'a known."

"Honestly, sirs, it's perfectly understandable," the Doctor assured them. "Someone just forgot to mention it to you. Look, I have an invitation right here…" He fished around in his pocket and pulled out the ever-useful psychic paper. He handed it to the guards, who looked at it carefully.

"That's the King's signature, alright," the guard on the right said to the other.

"See?" the Doctor asked cheerfully. "All set and dandy! Am I right?"

The guards still looked uncertain. "I think we should check with the King, just in case…" the guard on the right said.

"By all means, go right ahead," the Doctor said (which made me more than a little nervous). "But between you and me… Will the King really believe that someone just forgot to tell you? He may think you're incompetent, and we certainly wouldn't want that."

The guards looked at each other worriedly, then seemed to reach an unspoken consensus. They nodded at each other, then to us, and opened the door. "'Ave a nice visit, Sir, Miss," the guard on the left said as we walked past them and into the room.

"You know," the Doctor said quietly to me once the door was shut, "I really wonder if the two of them were even able to _read_ the psychic paper, to be honest."

It was a fair point, and I would have been happy to discuss it with him if a voice hadn't called to us from a curtained-off room in the suite.

"Come in, my friends," the voice said, with a decidedly American accent. "I've been expecting you."

"Have you, then?" the Doctor asked, surprised. "Funny, your guards didn't seem to know that…"

"That's because I didn't tell them," the voice replied. "Let's just say that this should be our little secret, king to lord." (I thought he put an unusual amount of stress on the word "lord" in that sentence, but since the Doctor didn't react, I figured that maybe I'd imagined the mysterious king alluding to the Doctor's race.)

Finally, the man who'd been the source of the voice stepped out from behind the curtain. He looked exactly as I would have expected a "king of America" to look: like any other king from the twelfth century, all robes and finery, except his face was sort of… Western-European-descended, modern American. Unfortunately, this big reveal only made me more confused, instead of answering any questions I had.

The Doctor appraised the king, too, but if he'd caught something that I'd missed, I couldn't tell. He nodded suddenly, then said, "Right, okay, our little secret, then. Erm, can I ask why?" Then he shook he gave his head a strong shake. "No, scratch that, better question: who are you? Because I think you and I both know that there's never been a king of America."

The King smiled. "Which is exactly why it made _such_ a wondrous cover story! I could come in as a king without worrying that one day, someone would recognize that I don't actually look a thing like the real king of that country. And, I didn't have to come up with any back-story myself; I could just use the story of America and the persona of its people. It worked perfectly, I must say."

"Well, I'm very happy for you," the Doctor told him, in a tone that clearly conveyed that he couldn't care less, "but why did you need a cover story in the first place? You've still not told us who you are, and now you can add to that where you're from, what you're doing here, and why precisely you put so much emphasis on the term 'lord' before." (So I _hadn't_ imagined that!)

The King grinned again, and (much to my surprise) answered without hesitation. "I am Commander Tyinc Mast of the planet Kenten. My queen, Her Highness Charia, has sent me to this planet on a very special mission; one that my people have been working towards for a very long time.

"You see, my people are able to see through time – not only the present, but the past and the future as well. It is an enjoyable gift, to be sure, but not very useful on its own. Coupled with the ability to _travel _through time, however…" The King – or, rather, Commander Mast's – grin widened in proportion to the amount the Doctor's eyes narrowed. "We've always known that the Time Lords were some of the most accomplished beings when it came to travel through time, but they were always entirely unwilling to share their secrets."

"So of course, the only option was to steal those secrets, then," the Doctor interrupted, glaring. "And your people decided to set your sights on a TARDIS."

"My, you _are_ clever!" Mast laughed. "Of course we decided to steal a TARDIS. The only problem was, they were _very_ hard to locate at first; they were either parked inaccessibly on Gallifrey, or off zipping through the universe and eternity." He sighed melodramatically and shook his head; then, suddenly beaming again, he continued. "But then my people finally discovered a way to track a being or object through time – we could latch on to something specific and be able to see where and when it was. This meant we could pick a few TARDISes and watch them through time and space; as soon as one was in our present day, we could jump in and take it." Mast paused. "Or, in this case, have someone else take it for me. It was all too easy to get the Sheriff to have his men apprehend your TARDIS, really; tell them it's valuable and they're on it like flies to a carcass. Of course, they only took it because they thought they'd be keeping it, but, oh well. Their loss.

"Anyway," Mast shrugged, "yours was one of the TARDISes that we watched, Doctor," Mast explained. "You traveled more extensively than any other Time Lord, which meant you were most likely to coincide with our time line. We focused our efforts on you, and over time got to know you quite well, from watching you."

"You mustn't know him that well, if you think that he'd just _let _you steal his TARDIS," I spat. "You should have known he'd come for it."

Mast laughed – and it was _not _a friendly laugh, either. "Oh, you silly, silly girl. Of course I knew that the Doctor would come looking for his ship! That was all part of the plan!"

I noticed the Doctor give the room a quick look-over for potential escape routes and step protectively in front of me as Mast continued speaking. "Even without the TARDIS, my people don't trust that you'll be out of the way enough, Doctor." I really, _really_ didn't like the sound of that, so I grabbed the Doctor's hand (as if that would stop anything bad from happening?). "You might still work out some way to get out of your predicament, find us, and take back your ship. That, clearly, has to be avoided." Mast flashed us a chilling smile. "And I hear that this Sheriff of Nottingham, for all his shortcomings, keeps an extremely efficient prison…"

As if on cue, two guards appeared from behind the curtained-off section of the room. They sauntered over to the Doctor and me, and, grabbing us roughly by the arms, started leading us to the door.

"You're making a big mistake, Commander," the Doctor called back to Mast, struggling against the guards. "You'll never be able to work out to fly the TARDIS. Even if you do, she won't move an inch for you. Besides which, she's locked. How do you plan to get in at all?"

Mast grinned again, even more coldly than before, and walked slowly over to stand directly in front of the Doctor. In the two or three seconds he stood there, stock-still and smiling evilly, the two- or three-thousand terrible things Mast could possibly be about to do to the Doctor ran through my head at light-speed. Then, without warning, Mast reached out frighteningly quickly to rifle through the Doctor's suit pockets (that, actually, was not one of the possibilities I'd thought of; it was far too tame). Before the Doctor could even properly protest, let alone prevent it, Mast had snatched not just the TARDIS key, but the psychic paper, the sonic screwdriver, a pocket-pack of tissues, a tin of cinnamon Altoids, a banana-scented marker (?), and a rubber duck (?!).

"Wonderful. That's the entry problem solved," Mast said happily, holding up the key. "As for the others… Don't think my people haven't prepared for this moment, Doctor. We don't just _wing _things, you know," he finished with a wink (clearly referencing the Doctor's tendency to do just that). Then, he dismissed us with a flick of his wrist, and the guards were back to dragging us out of the room and toward the dungeon.


End file.
